Copyright Issue

Fergie Angel and I wow daily

As you can't seem to agree on the content of this page (and that of the Armadyl page), please discuss this here.

/Wikipedia:Close_paraphrasing This article might help].

The content will stay removed until this has been resolved. Mod Michelle 15-Jun-2012 09:23 BST

Discussion

Ok. Fergie, it doesn't matter a fansite or official wiki. The information is never wrote yourself but by Jagex, because it is in the game. It's not my fault the information stays the same. I wrote if very different than on the fansite, and the information is just from in-game the Chosen Commander quest (In that quest you can find the same information as on the fansite) and from other things from Jagex/Runescape. I wow daily 15-Jun-2012 17:48 BSTDanziah (I wow daily)

P.S I removed the first link from wikipedia otherwise no one of us could edit this due to a spam filtre?

True, sometimes there is no better way to stick to the facts. No matter how many fansites out there; many people contribute to their growth. Can't really tell whether changes made here are by the same peoples from those sites. -Kwc9sc 15-Jun-2012 19:51 BST

I'm sorry, but it's really laughable to expect anyone to believe that you wrote the Bandos article without glancing back at the original wiki's version every few words. Just looking back at the first paragraph of the section "Bandos during the Godwars":

Every single sentence is blatantly ripped from the original version to the point that I'm not even comfortable calling it close paraphrasing. Some of them have switched the order of the phrases, some have replaced words with synonyms, and others still are copied completely verbatim.

As for the argument that "Jagex created the game so they have the right to reproduce any content written about it" (see, I'm paraphrasing here!), that's patently false. According to United States law (which is what Wikia and the RuneScape Wiki fall under), the copyright of a derivative work is held by the contributor(s) of that derivative work insofar as they use their own material independent of the underlying, original work. As an example, you could look at the Harry Potter Lexicon lawsuit, where it was ruled that authors of literary works do not always have the right to stop derivative works from being published, nor do they own the rights to them. (In this particular case the ruling was in favor of the author of the underlying work, but only because the derivative incorporated too much of the original work.)

I can't tell if you're trying to make the argument that you're allowed to copy from the original wiki, or that it just so happened that what you wrote turned out almost exactly the same as the one published years ago on the original wiki. Either way, the argument is invalid and you are not allowed to copy it without attribution under CC-BY-SA. Since it is apparently impossible to attribute here due to external link filters, the closely paraphrased content should be removed.

To Kwc9sc: Nearly the entirety of the copied sections of the Bandos and Armadyl articles were written by a single user, Morian Smith, about four and a half years ago. He owns the copyright to the disputed content.

Cook Me Plox

Again, how is it *** possible to write a article of Bandos without having some of the same information as rs wikia? Seriously, wikia is just a fansite created in 2005. All information is from in-game so yes, it looks like rs wikia. I didn't copy it, i worked on it. So it would be sad if it was removed. Also, before placing a comment in this discussion, read this: /Wikipedia:Close_paraphrasing and stick to the facts.

I wow daily 16-Jun-2012 11:43 BST

You use the same words, same sentences, nearly the same section titles. Any claim that it's just a coincidence that it looks almost exactly the same as the version written 4 years ago rings false. There are many ways to write an article using the information found in-game, and very few of them will look almost exactly the same as what is found on the original wiki. You have blatantly copied our work with very little regard for the original author or the license under which you may reproduce it. Regardless of how much you believe you contributed to the page, it's based entirely and hollowly on our material. STTF does not give you the right to plagiarize other sites' information solely because what we have is factual and verifiable. There are other considerations like the rights of the authors you copied from and the differences between the CC-BY-SA license and the one (or lack of one) that this wiki is using. I am intimately familiar with WP:PARAPHRASE and I'm hoping you are as well -- if you actually read it, you'd find that what you're doing falls under close paraphrasing. The actual RuneScape Wiki uses the same license as Wikipedia, and if you read the third paragraph of WP:PARAPHRASE you'll find:

If the source material bears a free copyright license that is compatible with Wikipedias licenses, copying or closely paraphrasing it is not a copyright violation so long as the source is attributed somewhere in the article, usually at the end. Otherwise, close paraphrasing may violate Wikipedia's copyright policy, which forbids Wikipedia contributors from copying information directly from other sources. Public domain material must likewise be attributed to avoid plagiarism.

Since this wiki is not compatible with Wikia's license (everything on here is copyrighted by Jagex), there are no circumstances under which you would legally be allowed to closely paraphrase it like you have done. I would appreciate it if you would read a little bit about what you've done and come to the correct conclusion that you're on the wrong side of this dispute.

Cook Me Plox

Oh, can you also tell me what other pages you paraphrased?

Cook

Please Hold Off Big Edits Till The Discussion Is Over

Please can everyone avoid big edits, especially bulk deletions, of any of the wiki content until an agreement/understanding has been reached here. I understand that emotions are high at this point and so I'm asking for people to act cool whilst working out the best way to move ahead with the wiki. I would rather not see any major churn on the pages, IMO the spirit of JWP:O3ER in this instance can easily be applied across the wiki as a whole and not just single articles as all these edits are part of the same incident. Mod Ajd 18-Jun-2012 01:34 BST

To be honest with you, I doubt an "agreement" with this editor can be reached. I'm sure you can tell, based on the similarities of the pages I've edited and had reverted, that they are paraphrased from the original wiki to the point that attribution is necessary.

I would like you or one of the other moderators to make a decision on whether you will accept this infringing content onto your site. My hope is that you will adhere to our CC-BY-SA license and either attribute or remove the stuff that's plagiarized or paraphrased from my site. You have a user here who is copying what we have written, with no regard for the rules and copyright that we have. I feel like I'm repeating myself, but the issue is not being resolved -- in the past we have always been able to remove infringing content without it being challenged or reverted by someone who is unfamiliar with how things actually work. The fact that he switched the phrases around doesn't change this...it's still copyright infringement, and it needs to be removed. Please stop treating this as some kind of editor dispute -- it's a cross-site dispute where someone on here is refusing to comply with our license. There's no gray area.

Cook Me Plox

We are going to make a decision on this once we've looked at the situation in full. That means the copyright situation, the site rules situation, and the 'what's going to be the best outcome for everyone' situation for all the sites. I'm not going to call what is and isn't the situation as I'm not a lawyer, however we do have a couple of those at Jagex so we're going to make sure everything is done right. This is why we're not going to rush things or make a call till its been throughly looked into. Mod Ajd 20-Jun-2012 17:09 BST

The agreement was, as shown above for legality and between Fansite Staff and Jagex Staff, stated during a recent conversation that "we don't want people to go directly to your site, take your content you've done and put it on our site". This is also not limited to paraphrasing, so while it is meant to be a self-healing system, it's infuriating that nothing is being done to the user that is violating copyrights, licenses and outright fallacies. -- Ryan M 18-Jun-2012 03:09 BST

I can see that this is continuing to be a conflict, so I will be discussing this with the rest of the team to see if we can come to an agreement to resolve this matter. As soon as we come to a decision we will update this discussion. Mod Neong 18/06/2012 - 04:14

Thank you Neong. I would also appreciate clarification on this wiki's use of images that were originally uploaded by editors of the original wiki. An example is the image found on Polypore staff, Image:100px-Polypore staff detail.png. This is the same as the picture that is found on the original wiki's page, although our version was uploaded a week earlier. There are at least a hundred other examples on here, a lot of which are noticeable because they start with "<number>px", which means they were saved directly from the original wiki.

Now, Jagex and the official wiki are legally allowed to use these images, as they own the content license. Just about any fansite is legally allowed to copy them, but for the most part that doesn't happen because there's a certain amount of courtesy that goes on between the fansites and their administrators. We don't steal pictures from Tip.It, and Tip.It doesn't steal pictures from us, because we respect each other and we want to build our own sites without leeching off others. My question is, why can't this wiki do the same? If you want the kind of pictures we have, have your community take them using the orb of oculus and add transparency like our image editors do. Taking our work may not be illegal, but it's infuriating to us and it cheapens your own accomplishment.

Cook Me Plox

There's also a rather large list of images taken from RSWiki to be found on the discussion page of the Anti-vandalism team here. I believe the stance taken there (although there was no statement ever given on that particluar page) was that as there was no copyright infringement there was no need to remove them. Nonetheless, as a competitor to fansites, this wiki should really follow the code of conduct all other good fansites observe of not copying each other.

I'm very much against the idea that RSWiki's editors should have to waste their time checking articles for copyright infringements. We do this on a volunteer basis, you guys at Jagex get paid to make this wiki, and yet you are still unable to catch copyright infringement? With all due respect, it's kind of poor. Cam 19-Jun-2012 00:45 BST

If you don't report it then we don't know about it. Let us know what's going on and we'll be able to work with you to get things done right for everyone. Mod Ajd 20-Jun-2012 17:09 BST

We actively remove anything we spot, the content recently removed just wasn't spotted. No one is trying to hurt your site here, and if you want to protect your content, then it is something you'll need to help with too. We need to work together to resolve the issue, not make one side or the other deal with it. Think of it like the reporting system in game. We actively look for rulebreakers, but sometimes we need rulebreaking to be reported to us. It's the same here.

I've been through Cook Me Plox's page and removed all the images there. I'll go to the Anti-vandalism team page and work through that now. Note images are a separate issue as the content does belong to Jagex. Personally I'd rather remove those, but that is a personal view and I support anything that the moderation team decide. As far as I'm aware, these weren't removed when reported because there is no copyright infringement in regard to images taken in the game. - Mod Michelle 19-Jun-2012 09:12 BST

We were always aware of how the images belonged to Jagex (see "What if Jagex makes their own wiki?" on rswiki). We considered watermarking the images we used to stop copying, which our more law-proficient editors thought would likely be illegal, but in the earlier stages of this wiki, there were several mixed messages on whether images could be taken from any fansite and re-used here.

Also, I'd like to apologise if I come across as....unpleasant in any of my comments earlier. Perhaps the support network we have at rswiki is a little more active when looking for things that do not belong, maybe because we have more eyes to look for this stuff, so it's unfair to come here and expect the same. I'm do appreciate that you guys are making an effort in this though :) Cam 19-Jun-2012 11:33 BST

No worries, it's a difficult issue and things are getting a bit heated. It's to be expected when people are passionate about things. :) - Mod Michelle 19-Jun-2012 11:50 BST

I've seen far worse over far less so this is 'heated but sensible' imo :) BTW the mixed message situation is something that I totally empathis with you on which is why I'm chasing this up and doing all I can to get a solid answer. Sadly this is going to mean that it's going to take a while to get everything sorted out, so its cool to see people giving us the time to work things out ^_^ Mod Ajd 20-Jun-2012 17:09 BST

I've been trying to keep out of this discussion, mainly because I'm not very knowledgeable about these things. I mainly came to ask about this section's title - did you want to suppress large additions which were (hopefully) not closely paraphrased/copied as well?

With regards to the enforcement of a copying policy, I (as well as most of the regulars here) already appear to go through most suspicious looking edits which are vandalism, I don't see why that couldn't be extended to copyright infringement as well. I wasn't actually aware of the legal issues surrounding close paraphrasing before now - although it looked bad (and so I didn't do it), I didn't know it was actually something that could be justifiably reverted. That brings us back to the image copying issue, where the fact that the images weren't actioned made me stop deletion-ing them. Also, after some sort of decision is reached, updating the relevent Editing Guidelines section would probably be a good move.

On a side note, see also Image:Fumus.gif, Image:Glacies.gif, Image:Cruor.gif, and Image:Umbra.gif. I seem to remember that some of them were resized and mirrored from the orginial pngs as well. - Loggy C 20-Jun-2012 18:02 BST

Bandos

Made major changes to paraphrased work please comment, Ill make changes as necessary -Kwc9sc 16-Jun-2012 15:28 BST

Bandos is the deity of many less intelligent races of Gielinor, commonly known for defeating many large armies. The High Priest from the Land of the Goblins mentioned some intelligent peoples^* have known his name; yet many humans of Gielinor has forgotten the existence of Bandos since his disappearance after the God Wars.
^* ork, ogre

The Third Age

According to goblin religion: During the Third Age, aka the God wars, Bandos's arrived and failed to recruit many of Gielinor's races^* to fight for him. They were already fighting for other gods such as Saradomin, Zamorak, Armadyl. Despite the odds, Bandos recruited some followers: unintelligent, war-like races. During the God Wars, Bandos fought many battles; his sole desire to revel in the bloodshed that threatened to destory the world. Fighting alone, he made "temporary" alliances with Armadyl and Saradomin, only to win battles. Fighting in The Wilderness, Bandos added to the chaos and confusion of Saradomin and Zamorak's forces.

Despite its end over 4,000 years ago, the combatants who were frozen during combat, continues the battle in the God Wars Dungeon. Bandos' army is one of the five combatants in the God Wars Dungeon battle, for the mighty Godsword. His army is mostly comprised of races that use melee combat. There are some orks, goblins and ogres that use Range or Magic. At the end of the war, Bandos left Gielinor. Today, Bandos has a small but ever-growing group of followers; Some say he left for new plans, others say he left because he was scared and could not make some of his followers fight.
^* dwarves, demons, elves, aviantese, humans

The Chosen Commander

During The Chosen Commander, Bandos attempted to conquer RuneScape by reasserting his authority over his followers. His goal was to use Goblins (the Dorgeshuun in particular) as his heralds. He hoped to punish the Dorgeshuun for abandoning his cause in the God wars, by using them for his warlike purposes. His Chosen Commander, broke free from his control. With help from fellow Dorgeshuun and the player, she launched a counterattack against the War God. She succeeded in destroying the pendant Bandos had been using to exert his will on the Goblins of Runescape. Now the pendant is destroyed, alomg with much of Bando's power within it. It is unknown whether Bandos will be able to rebuild his Strength for another assault.

Goblins

Goblin village.

When Bandos was searching for followers that would fight for him in the God Wars he found the first goblins. He discovered them in a separate world known as Yu'biusk. This was a large and marshy world, with massive mushrooms and other strange plants and structures that cover the surface. It had a very rich and fertile ground. Bandos forced the goblins to come with him to Gielinor, to train them in the ways of combat and ultimately turn them into brutal and violent warriors. Yu'biusk and all that remained were all but destroyed; the once rich and fertile land was charred black, covered in craters and poisoned sludge. By the end of Bandos' reign, it was completely uninhabitable. In the time of the God Wars the goblins were much stronger and more numerous than that they are today. The goblins unquestioningly fought for Bandos in twelve different tribes. Bandos used the goblins wastefully, sending them to unwinable battles for mere sport, leading to the extinction of many tribes. The Dorgeshuun was the only tribe to fled his rule. As time passed, goblin tribes were either wiped out or combined with other tribes for survival; many have forgotten their tribe's name. Not much has changed for the goblin, although their strength and violence has greatly diminished. Some have even settled in The Goblin Village near Taverley.

Dorgeshuun

The Dorgeshuun was the only tribe to have fled the rule of Bandos. The Dorgeshuun having realised that they would be forced to extinction if they continued to follow Bandos, the Dorgeshuun hid underground in the swamps near the River Lum, cutting off all contact with outside civilizations, fearing Bandos' wrath. Bandos never found the Dorgeshuun; Over many centuries the Dorgeshuun adapted to peaceful life underground and founded the city Dorgesh-Kaan. The Dorgeshuun now oppose violence in all its forms and are amongst the most peaceful races in Gielinor. When we adventurers arrive in the scene, everything they never thought would happen becomes a nightmarish reality of their peaceful life.

Tribes

Agreement

Ok, this is the first time in my life I agree with someone who does make changes to my work, but I have to be fair...It looks really nice ;) There aren't by far major changes, but that doesn't matter. If you agree with your own work too (I do think so, lol) then you can edit the article, but please keep the godinfo template I made. template:godinfo. If some info is missing I will put it in my own words in the text by not copying anything. I know this copying was a huge problem because this was a huge article but normally when I only add a little information to for example item pages it is in my own words etc. and it looks really not like copying, but i will try not to type a copied article in the future when I make big edits.

I wow daily 16-Jun-2012 16:21 BST

This still does not work for us. The article is still obviously written based on the original version -- let's make another table based on the section "The Goblins".

I do believe that any reasonable observer would see that "In this example, [the original] article text is an attempt at paraphrasing the source. However, almost all of the original word choice, word order and sentence structure is retained." There are not a "Limited number of ways to say the same thing" -- anyone writing from scratch would come up with something completely different than what you have. This is the definition of close paraphrasing, and you guys are not allowed to do it because your license isn't free. In any case, this draft is completely unacceptable. We'd prefer it if you wrote your own article using information gathered yourself, but if you really feel the need to paraphrase, check out the section "How to write acceptable content" on the Wikipedia page.

Cook Me Plox

LOOOOL, I didn't rewrote that and you guys are just sad, i know your opinion is that this wiki had never to be exist because someday it will be better than wikia and you guys will avoid this...And other pages paraphrased ? You're deleting information that is by far not the same as wikia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE SO SAD!!!!!!! What you are doing now is big vandalism..One more time and i blank out like 100 pages from wikia and let's see, that's not funny anymore and i get a ban. You're just lucky Mod Michelle didn't ban you or sth if that's even possible. This is so sad...I think i will never edit this wiki anymore because there are sad nolifers/writers from wikia who delete it all the time. SAD.

I wow daily 17-Jun-2012 08:27 BST

The Bandos page is so clearly copied from the original wiki's version that I am frankly astonished you're even trying to fleece us here. If you are thoroughly unconvinced I can do a sentence-by-sentence rundown of every article that I removed so you will see how ridiculous your statement is. There are no opinions here, just the facts -- this article, plus the twenty-odd others that I noticed, were plagiarized, by you, from our site. You have no right, legally or within the policies of this wiki, to do that. All of the articles whose content I removed (with the possible exception of the Lucky Saradomin sword, which I'll get to in a minute) have the same word choice, sentence order and paragraphing as the ones posted on the original wiki much earlier. As I stated above, this is against our license and against this wiki's policies. If you see information on the original wiki that is copied from here, by all means remove it -- however, I doubt you'll find much if any, as that generally doesn't happen and when it does we have a support structure that removes it quickly. If you remove information that's from here, we won't block you, but if you remove legitimate material for no other reason than you want to get back at me for noticing your theft, you won't be able to edit anymore. On the other hand, I have every right to remove content copied from my site, as noted by this e-mail snippet from Eduardo, formerly the fansite support curator:

We take plagiarism very seriously. If you come to see any pages with plagiarised content, please feel free to edit the wiki yourselves explaining the reasoning behind the edit (with text along the lines of “copied from RSWikia”).

I have done exactly that, and you're needlessly reverting it (in clear violation of your 3rd Edit Rule). In short, this is not vandalism. Please stop it.

Cook Me Plox

About vandalism

This is big vandalism, you're deleting information now from almost all pages with some information...Are you kidding me?/?!?!??!/1 You say this looks like that from wikia (article:Lucky Saradomin sword):

A reward from the Squeal of Fortune. Has the exact same stats as a regular Saradomin Sword, but has a negligible coin value upon death. Can use the Saradomin Sword's special attack.

Whahahahaha, that looks like wikia i think so too xD not.

I wow daily 17-Jun-2012 08:27 BST

I may have made a mistake reverting that particular page, as it is slightly better-paraphrased than the others you have edited. My mind was made up when I noticed you guys used the same picture as us, although now I see that you were not the one who uploaded it. My apologies for my possible error, but you are noticeably silent on the 27 other pages I reverted. I would also appreciate it if you treated me with some form of maturity.

Cook Me Plox

I'm curious, why has no Jagex Mod weighed in here? CC-BY-SA is clear when it comes to copying pages, and when there is even the slightest amount of copying there should be attribution. Failure to provide attribution is illegal, no two ways about it.

What should be done to create this wiki is proper research from sources (the unofficial RuneScape Wiki is not a source) followed by a summary of what those sources describe in terms of information. It's how it's done at RS Wiki and hoe it should be done here. If Jagex is not willing to remove the content that has been copied themselves, especially when it's them at a legal disadvantage here, they should not have opened a freely editable database. Editors of RSWiki should not have to keep a look out for those who copy, it's up to the hosts of the site to sort it out. --Cåm

@cook me plox I treat you with some form of maturity but as you already said, this is getting anoyed, i get very angry when someone deletes information from like 30 pages without checking the unofficial wiki. The only thing you want is ruining this wiki. And im not silent about the other pages, look at the page of catalytic runes. You delete a full table. A table can't be copied from rs wiki in my eyes. It's just true information that i put in a table. And please keep your excuses for youself about that page of Saradomin sword because you only say you made an error because i was the one who's right and your not.

I wow daily 17-Jun-2012 11:49 BST

I am actually quite interested in seeing this wiki succeed as it will give me and my wiki some competition that will spur us to innovation. I checked all of the pages I removed information on, both on here and on the original wiki, and I found that perhaps with one exception you did not do a very good job of covering your tracks. I deleted the table because it was copied from the wiki -- its truthfulness isn't relevant, because there was a strong indication based on the rest of the page that you had copied the table as well. I have (maybe rightfully) apologized to you about the Lucky Saradomin sword page. You can try to weasel around and find small examples of where I may have possibly overstepped my bounds, erring on the side of protecting my site's copyright, but the bigger issue is the other pages that you clearly paraphrased from my site and will not admit to. Will you apologize now for copying the other articles, wasting my time and disrespecting the real authors of the content you stole?

Cook Me Plox

"Angry"? It's not your content in the first place. Either you stole it from RSWiki, in which case the editors there own it, or you wrote it yourself and added it here, in which case Jagex own it.

More to the point, Cook has apologised for what may be an oversight. You have yet to admit you have stolen content which is blatantly obvious to even a toddler, let alone admit you were in the wrong for doing so. Cam 17-Jun-2012 12:18 BST

Oh, just for fun:

Do you still want to tell me that this is some grand coincidence? You got caught. Deal with the consequences.

Cook Me Plox

How's this? --Kwc9sc 17-Jun-2012 13:59 BST 1.Short 2.Easy to understand 3.STTF

Royal bolts - 85
Royal bolts can only be used with the Royal crossbow. Can be obtained from groutworms and the QBD.
poisoned=No
ranged strength=125
Ava's devices. = Yes

If you guys want to present your content in that format I'm not going to stop you. I'm not interested in interfering with the editorial decisions made on here -- I just want to protect my site's material.

Cook Me Plox

It'll be so much easier if a Jmod could make this page -K9 17-Jun-2012 15:10 BST

I wow daily - You need to stop reverting all of these pages back to their illegal state. Talk it out on here instead of engaging in multiple edit wars. Fergie Angel 17-Jun-2012 16:31 BST

Domanater45

I dont think im understanding the point your trying to make, as articles that i have written have been deleted for the same problem. If Jagex owns rs and all images of it (my problem as pictures i have uploaded have been deleted for 'copying'), then how is it that u can say that it is copying? The material is owned by Jagex. Fansites simply use the information and images THAT JAGEX OWNS to build their own database. How can using stuff from fansites to the actual game site be considered plagirism? It doesnt make since. Domanater45 22-Jun-2012 22:55 BST

The thing about images is that copying them from other sites makes this wiki look bad. It's also kinda impolite, and makes us look lazy, even if it is actually not illegal. The same is true with copying/paraphrasing other sites' content. - Loggy C 22-Jun-2012 23:41 BST

Hey (: It doesn't matter that Jagex owns what the material. Jagex allows fansites to freely post information about the game. For the RuneScape Wiki (fansite) in particular, Wikia has a copyright license. You can't take anything from our website without providing proper attribution - regardless of what the content is (unless it's copyrighted itself (which information from RS isn't)).

The material is owned by Jagex. The text is owned by its respective fansite under a copyright license. It's copyright infringement to break those copyright laws. Basically, Jagex doesn't own our words.

Regarding images, Jagex can claim those if they'd like. However, what kind of fansite would want to be known to the RS community as being the one fansite that stole all of its images from somewhere? It can take hours to add transparency to an image. It's not really nice to go and steal someone else's work that they spent hours on simply because "you can". We are fully aware that Jagex can claim copyright to the images we upload, but they don't because they have respect for growing fansites. No other fansite (that I know of) copies any other fansites' images. Sometimes we come across another fansite taking our images, but they stop once we send them a message asking them to. It's a fansite-respect-thing. Fergie Angel 23-Jun-2012 00:33 BST

That makes sense and was all that I needed to know. I understand your point of the fanstie-respect thing, so I'll lay off the images. Thanks for the info. Domanater45 26-Jun-2012 05:49 BST

A little bit later...

The above discussion under a long title seems to have been dead for over a month without consensus/a conclusion. Have any further developments been made about this? - Loggy C 30-Jul-2012 23:51 BST

Does consensus exist here? I'm hoping Mod Ajd hasn't forgotten, but the images returning isn't a good sign. --Cam 05-Aug-2012 01:46 BST

I'm sure you will receive word soon. Unfortunately I'm not part of the discussion so I can't provide any more details at this time. In regards to images, please notify us by labelling the images with the template I have provided (Template:Copied). Thanks. - Mod Michelle 06-Aug-2012 09:22 BST

It would be great to get some resolution on this...unless there are major legal considerations to be made, this shouldn't take two months. -- Cook

I've given the moderation team a poke to see if I can get an answer for you. - Mod Michelle 16-Aug-2012 09:17 BST

I don't think there's anything wrong with editing this page, -just unsure can be put back in; Also checked a few pages a while back K'ril Tsutsaroth is definitely plagiarized; needs rewrite.- Kwc9sc 16-Aug-2012 14:36 BST

It would be very nice if this issue can be resolved some time in 2012. Fergie Angel 08-Sep-2012 23:39 BST

There's been no word on this for three months now, so I've removed the closely paraphrased articles. Avogadro 11-Oct-2012 20:37 BST

We have been requesting clarification on what action you will take against infringing content closely paraphrased from the original wiki. It's been nearly four months since this issue arose, and the lack of official response since then has been grating. I removed the text that is incompatible with this wiki's license, but it was reverted (however,most of the reverting was reverted). Please let this go, because it's not allowed. Avogadro 12-Oct-2012 03:55 BST

Copyright Policy

Okay guys, I've chased up an answer for you. I apologise that this took so long, I just wanted to make sure that all teams who are involved in this were on the same page.

I'll do my best to explain it, and how it fits in with the wiki and the moderation that has been going on. Chances are I'll cover things that are already known or expected, but I think it's best to be thorough.

Right, so firstly there is the T&Cs. I've highlighted the bits that are important below:

The first part that I have highlighted explains why images were not deleted by Jagex moderators - although any cropping or transparency was completed by fansites, the images themselves still belong to Jagex. Personally I find that having images that are the same on different sites, other than official images, like wallpapers for example, is counterproductive. However, this is not illegal for these images to be on our website/wiki. As a compromise I will write this into the images policy that images from fansites are discouraged and require permission of the person who took/edited them, but remember that these images cannot be removed from the wiki for copyright issues.

The second part highlighted is just a general reminder of the image policy in regards to non Jagex/RuneScape related images. Not really of importance in this specific case, but should be mentioned as a general point towards the image policy that I'm going to expand on.

Now, specifically addressing the content standards policy (same link):

So again, stating things we are already aware of, but it's there for you to read up on and know that it is there and Jagex do care about this issue.

Reporting Copyright Issues

Personally - and I really can't speak for the moderators who have been handling any removals - I believe the issue has been that copyright/plagiarism hasn't been reported correctly, just removed with an angry or rude comment (which is not unexpected, this is a heated issue). However, I'm sure you'll agree that removals like this can come across as vandalism rather than a legitimate concern of copyright/plagiarism.

Patrols of recent changes will continue, but if you have spotted something that we have missed I'd strongly advise following the report process below. This comes directly from the copyright team and needs to be followed in order to make a formal request for removal of content.

Questions

I hope this makes sense, and covers the questions asked, but if it doesn't feel free to question things and I'll do my best to get the answers for you. - Mod Michelle 16-Oct-2012 09:44 BST

It's great to see this answer, at least :) (PS: for some reason "eing com" is censored so I had to tweak slightly)

With regards to copied content, should us regular users (or those without any affiliation with the plagiarised source) remove close paraphrased/copied stuff? - Loggy C 16-Oct-2012 20:19 BST

I can't see a problem with that. I think if everyone helps out we should be able to keep on top of it. Edit comments should probably be kept to something like "I believe this content was copied/paraphrased from an external source" which is nice and neutral. If the content gets added back in again, the page can always be reported as explained above. - Mod Michelle 17-Oct-2012 09:24 BST

So, in essence, the images are going to stay, the plagiarised text can be removed, although not by RSWiki editors. Not something I'm especially surprised to see, but it's a statement at last. I would appreciate a policy page on the removal of content, if just for us to link to at RSWiki. A comments page link isn't hugely professional, even more so when searching for the page produces a result of 'this page does not exist, please follow this link if you wish to create it', which sends you here, or something to that effect. My thanks on finally producing response on this issue :) Cam 17-Oct-2012 12:39 BST

That's partially correct, but there is an additional comment. As I mentioned above, the images cannot be removed due to copyright however, this does not mean that they cannot be removed at all. As a compromise I have added this situation to the image policy: any image that has been missed when I went through and deleted the copied images can be labeled with {{FansiteContent}} and will be replaced or deleted as needs be. As for the general policy for copied/plagiarised content, I'll update RuneScape Wiki Q&A and work on Jagex Wiki Policies for this too. I just placed this here so you guys knew an answer had been given. - Mod Michelle 17-Oct-2012 12:48 BST

What about the image used on the Timeline representing WGS? Whilst the image is not currently in use on RSWiki it can be seen in the history of File:While Guthix Sleeps.png which was originally uploaded in 2008. Thanks for sorting out the policy page part though Cam 17-Oct-2012 13:16 BST

Well, although it's not ideal that it's an image is in use, it cannot be removed as a copyright issue. I'll see if I can get an alternative image put up on there as a replacement, but I can't promise this will be looked at by the website team any time soon. Unfortunately I don't have the permissions to change the image. - Mod Michelle 17-Oct-2012 13:35 BST