Today's featured article, Grace Sherwood, has apparently been plagiarized by none other than Rlevse (T-C-L-K-R-D) , arbitrator, checkuser, bureaucrat and all the other hats.

His response? Retirement.

I wonder how many of his other FAs are plagiarized too? See here for the discussion.

The link no longer works, and I cannot find the discussion in the archives either. Maybe it got wished into the cornfield.

If memory serves, this was not the only plagiarism episode involving Rlevse.

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Plagiarism and copyright concerns on the main page. Apparently he's resigned all of his user rights too.

The FA of 1st August was full of cut&paste stuff too.

and anybody keeping count of the number of times hes "resigned" and stormed off in a huff?

I find Rleves pretty shocking. The way he takes/took charge of the "XX is an Awesome Wikipedian - and has his own Day" nonsense to prejudice important RFC's, and to generally promote his own prejudices (without seeing the need to give a reason for his decision) was/is seriously bad news.

I wonder what would happen if someone now went around rescinding them all before he comes back? I'm tempted to remove the one he gave the hatchet admin TenofAllTrades during the actual polling of the Community de-Adminship debacle, which Tenofall went out of his way to bring down and generally render unusable. They are more than just "harmless barnstars" - they appear to be semi-officious and even vote-awarded, and they do fool people.

Unfortunately, an ego like him will find his way back I expect. If he's done it before, someone should make one of those counters for the amount of times a user pretends to retire, in the style of a massive award.

Well, what do you expect, friends? If you really wrote your own stuff, you'd be guilty of WP:SYNTH. In theory, you could sew together a bunch of direct quotes with cites, but the result looks sort of like Fankenstein's monster, sutures, boxtop head and all. So you have to re-word stuff to smoothe out the style, and now you're synthesizing toward a point again, although you may be trying to balance that point against another like crazy, as per NPOV.

Wikipedia's rules are really written so that they are nearly impossible to violate while writing a nice long grade A article for FA status. So there's this endless temptation.

Rlevse has run afoul of the temptation machine. Gee, surprise.

Personally, I prefer to WP:SYNTH. When I get caught, somebody sticks {{reference}} tags all over my stuff and sometimes somebody else even goes so far as to delete it. I'm coming to realize that the cure for that is to move along to a different article. If they do it too much, I'll just scale back on writing. I'm never going to do admin chores, so they can choke, there.

It is almost impossible to adhere strictly to a complex rule book. One should always make sure ones opponent is made to adhere to theirs.

So the real question to be answered here is who did Rlevse piss off so badly that his Cabal shield was punctured? Normally if a Cabalista were to be accused of plagiarism, the shield would have protected them, usually by finding some way to dismiss the accuser as a crank/troll/sockpuppet/meatpuppet/etc. The fact that Rlevse was not protected suggests that he had lost favor.

Virtually everyone on Wikipedia can be accused of some sort of violation of the rules or another, because the rules are so antinomic; avoiding the consequences of such accusations is almost entirely a factor of who your friends and enemies are.

I really, genuinely, hope the guy makes it out of the Wikipedia's black hole gravitational pull and back to an orbit of his own and his family's.

I hope this is his time.

Any diffs that might provide more information have apparently "vanished".

AFAICT, most of the stink was raised by SandyGeorgia and Moonriddengirl, but who knows what was said off-wiki.

There was an argument on AN/I, which was claimed to have been moved to the "Plagiarism and copyright concerns" area.
This looks related. But I'm not convinced it is the same text.
Something has clearly been disappeared.


He certainly had his way with you in 2008.
(That was one of the most blatant examples of a WR thread being trolled by WP apologists
and Rlevse defenders I've ever seen. User:B made a real douche of himself--and he had help.)

Mr. Everette: you suck, sir. You think you're sneaky, yet now you're on the outs. Ha.

(But seriously, he'll hide/use alternate accounts for a few months, then quietly pop back up
and quietly be handed back all his powers. No one will notice or care, except on WR.)

Not so sure about this. There's a lot of pride here.

Those at the core of the FA process have put a lot of time into it, and are often among Wikipedia's most educated, and most creative writers. They have a status as an elite - and when one of their own punctures that, they are not happy at all. Rightly so.

Many of them also have some academic experience, and in academia plagiarism is the biggest of cardinal sins. Anyone who has marked essays will pride themselves on spotting plagiarism - because failure to do so undermines both research and, indeed, education itself.

You can knock the FA process as claiming more than it can deliver. I am personally very critical of it. Its biggest problem is that it is simply too generalist to deliver. Reviewers, even good ones, seldom have any competency in the particular field they are reviewing, and (for other reasons) FA candidates tend to be quite specialist. I've gone through the process twice and my experience was that reviewers tended to focus on syntax and prose rather than content.

Plagiarism is actually fairly hard to spot. You have to access the sources and read them carefully, comparing them to the article. That's a long and laborious practice. It is also NOT how most plagiarism is spotted in academia. Most plagiarism is spotted because the subject specialist who is reviewing the work, or marking the essay, is already deeply familiar with literature in the field. So he tends to read something, think "that sounds familiar" and go checking. Either that, or he's scrutinising the work of one particular individual because he's already suspicious about their standards.

They appear to me to be completely and 100% officious on Webster's definition ("volunteering one's services where they are neither asked nor needed: meddlesome"). In fact, a large proportion of what Rlevse has been doing for months, if not years, may be described as officious. That's how you get to be on ArbCom. If you mean semi-official, then yes, anything from an ArbCom member necessarily has a certain aura of officialdom attached to it, even if it isn't intended. (Not that it's unintended in his case.)

Besides me, who else has academic experience and cared about plagiarism?

I was the only one doing the plagiarism checks for a year and some and when I was booted no one bothered to step up.


By the way, plagiarism is easy to spot - look for a word that seems to "stylish", "fancy", or whatever. If the writing seems too good, check it. I was able to review over 250 articles at FAC for plagiarism without a problem.

I suspect many involved in the FA process do have some academic or research experience. But real professional academics don't spend their time running plagiarism checks (or editing Wikipedia for that matter). My experience is that academics identify plagiarism because they 1) know the literature and 2) know their students (and thus spot language that doesn't sound like their own).

Ultimately the strength and weakness of the FA is that it requires the writers to be competent. I'm somewhat embarrassed by my old FAs that I childishly considered "fine", and work on improving them when I have time. I'm certain that some of my old writing probably contained some plagiarism as well; in that case, the fact that I've stayed away from the articles helps in rewriting and cleaning up those issues.

Since then, the quality of my writing has increased, and my own standards for what I submit to FA has also risen. Many of the well-regarded FA writers follow similar practices of "it's ready when I feel like I've given it my all", and those aren't the articles we have to worry about; for their unwitting missteps and lack of coverage in an area or whatever problems, they're still solid and among the best Wikipedia (and the internet) can offer.



Yes, occasionally you have a "gotcha" moment when the tone and diction dramatically shifts that's an indication, but frankly I've only seen that in the papers of students and idiots. Not to say Wikipedia doesn't have it's fill of both, but the more subtle and hence malicious types of plagiarism are often using more common language anyhow. News writers don't fancy themselves wordsmiths like novelists do. You're going to have a much easier time getting away with grabbing text from CNN than from Dickens.

You do know that most "real academics" teach and have to check for plagiarism in papers, right? I've done quite a lot of work with professors checking essays and papers for it.

Plagiarism can sound like "their own" in such papers because many of them just copy Wikipedia's crappy entries (rarely do they steal from the good ones).

I was talking about the Awesome Wikipedian Days he awards people to give various positions he agrees with a lift. Try quoting the first half of the sentence too - it's a good discipline in places like this!

TenOfAllTrades was a constant trolling presence during the already-difficult Community DeAdminship development, and outrageously hijacked its poll at the eventually-hurried RfC with an 'introductory' attack that was somehow projected from his user space, so no one could edit it in any way. TenofAll was clearly chosen to be as threatening as he could be throughout, and he did his job with real froth - though miraculously he got no one blocked. Rlevse awarding him his very own 'Awesome Wikipedian Day' during the poll was basically an act of Caligulan spite towards the many voters who were simply trying to make admin accountable in some way. CDA was a truly unpleasant experience, but Christ what can you say: that's Wikipedia. Always as messy as they can make it.

Good riddance to Rlevse, if he's really gone - it's not the only time he's abused the so-callled 'barnstar' for political purposes. These fucked-up Romans genuinely think they are above the underclass who slave away beneath them. Why shed any tears when they stab each other in their backs?

Awesome Wikipedian Day!

User:ILikeYourStance has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian
and therefore, I've officially declared today as ILikeYourStance Day!
For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian,
enjoy being the Star of the day, dear ILikeYourStance!

Peace,
Rlevse

Yet more decadent cybersex from the toga-wearing Admen of Planet Alpha. When will this bizarre race stop pleasuring and preening each other on the encyclopedia that is supposed to be for everyone?

I've taught at a University. We were certainly alert to Plagiarism - but the checking came from knowing the sources well, and investigating if suspicious. It did not come from any process independent of that.

The problem is that what academics do to screen for plagiarism cannot be done on Wikipedia, because (on the whole) the people marking the essays are not subject experts. That#s the root of the problem.

I suppose one could check something for plagiarism by reading all the sources and becoming familiar with them, but that really is asking more than is realistic.

I've got my own Awesome Wikipedian day, but I'm at a loss as to when Rlevse ever had a meaningful interaction, indirect or no.

And wouldn't you know it, the citizen press has picked up on this story already!

Wonder if this will picked up by reliable source newpapers.

It won't be long before Mr. Randy Lee Everette can have his own 15 minutes of fame and rectal exam, followed by an honorary WP BLP, properly sourced, to record the scandal and everything. His kids can then read about it. His wife can read about it. His church clubs can read about it.

Isn't Wikipedia cool? Binding us all together in a social network of reliable, verifiable information.

The majority of the articles are formatted in a way that makes them easy to synthesise, plagiarise, generally miscreate, or taint with deliberately false detail: and crucially the results will all look the same. There is nothing in place to stop any newly-created article filling up with nonsense, and thus every Wikipedia article does to some degree. Wikipedia articles are basically structurally unsafe.

The thing to do is to write them (or re-format them) as traditional essays, where essential factors like weight are built into form and syntax, and they cannot look credible without credible work put into them. Such entries can be written collaboratively in a far less fractious way than the current 'articles' have been, but the Big Problem for Wikimedia would be that a great many of them will be quite-speedily become effectively realised, or relatively-quickly come to a stage where future changes are minimal.

Wikimedia are more-than-happy with the often-dreadful 'Featured Articles' for two main reasons: primarily because their presence satisfies those lucrative sponsors who buy into the ideal of a world-saving 'encyclopedia of everything', and also because any post-FA edits to them, such as unwanted complication or vandalism, can be far more-easily controlled by various 'protective' admin. But Featured Article status is more a matter of presentation and uniformity - they are not properly assessed for accuracy (all those user-page nitwits who like to polish-one-up for breakfast included), and they are still theoretically intended to develop and improve.

But an effectively finished product though? Next to censorship (or anything that blocks the content flow), truly-encyclopedic entries are Wikimedia's worst nightmare, and they will never willingly allow them to happen. Working 'together' towards a complete encyclopedia? It's a massive centralised lie: Wikipedia is first and foremost a giant battleground in which a clever and complicated corporation can thrive and develop. Every day we see Wikimedia balance damage-limitation using various semi-positive and cynical measures (including plenty of media spin), with deliberately allowing the 'great brood' of editors to shout themselves horse in the various edit/block - ban/sock cycles they inevitably get locked into.

Evidence to imputed motive?

This is negative and unfounded summation posing as fact, and is the worst type of hatchet-job journalism.

Risker blocked the IP for "block evansion". By all means say that you disbelieve her, and suspect other motives (you are not forced to assume good faith), if you want to move into the realm of commentary. However, if you are reporting, then stick to the facts. Certainly, you should report the reason Risker gave, even if your (rather biased) conclusion is that you expect other motives.

Poor journalism indeed.

You expected a quality article from Gregory Kohs? Really?

The IP apparently only made that one edit, so even if it was someone evading a block, the only thing they did was point out a (real) problem on a talk page. Sockpuppet of an enemy of the wiki-state or no, they were actually helping to improve the quality of the encyclopedia.

Respecting your editing history (I haven't looked), the odds are that Rlevse was simply 'into' something you either said or supported at the time - and gave you the cynical award to add extra credibility to it, to help convince passers by. I'm seen him give it to a unashamedly-POV 'SPA' account, who has had a lengthy block for voting with a sock puppet in a nationalist issue, and has never made a single non-comment or non-revert edit. The SPA is a cheery chap who retires and pops back on a regular basis, sometimes changing his account name officially (he's one of those social networking-style editors who like to chat about politics in his friend's user pages), but it was conclusive evidence Rlevse just doesn't check up - he simply goes with the moment.

What is so damaging is that the award naturally appears to reflect actual editor consensus over a history of quality contributions - when at times there is anything but. Some great editors may well have received the award, but reality it's all about Rlevse, the expedience of his POV, and of course his enormous ego in taking charge of such a ridiculously portentous thing in the first place.

What is it with those stupid banners anyway?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hernancad_nya...l-24333070@N00/

Yes quite I've never seen the rhyme or reason to it. I mean, just look at some of the names

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rlevse/Today/Archive

Well it's reasonable to point out that the IP was blocked after just a single, good, edit. Why was risker even looking up the IP?

There's certainly no reason to believe the IP should be blocked, given that the identity of the blocked user hasn't been specified, and there's no evidence of connection with any other users that I can see.

Even if it's true that this IP is a banned user (and I see no reason to believe it is), blocking good contributors for past sins is one of the worst aspects of the Wikipedia MMORPG

The whole lot should be moved to Oct 31st. A few people keep it pretty quiet, clearly. I wonder which ones would have the ego to complain if someone simply deleted the whole list?

In your article you have said that other content added by Rlevse, in addition to Grace Sherwood, has been found to contain copyvios; are they listed somewhere?

I notice that it's your Day this weekend. Are you doing anything nice for it?

I'd give this a 50% chance of confusion with Roger Davies, Ryan Postlethwaite, or one of the other "R"-people.

Yes, yes, and the SS was merely assisting with relocation of the Jews to areas where they could be more free to flourish in communities of their own. Heck, a reliable source tells us that "German Jews Support Reich".

I have personal experience with "Risker", you nitwit. Therefore, my summation isn't "unfounded" -- it is "expertise".

You're becoming an embarrassment to yourself, Doc. But, go ahead... side with the plagiarists.

I might go on a rampage and delete all the bloody barnstars; that would be nice.

That was a mistake on my part, misinterpreting other commentary I had been reading. My statement has been revised to say:

Defending proper standards of journalism is hardly siding with plagiarists or siding with the Nazis. Congrats on not even waiting a few posts before lumping people who suggest you aren't telling all sides of a story with genocidal fascists. If calling you out on your constant and tiring self-promotion is being an embarrassment... well, then I'm an embarrassment.

You've rather made my point here. Your "column" isn't attempting to be journalism, its just your personal place to rant, re-interpreting reality to suit your agenda. It's a political attack piece, not journalism. Fair enough, but stop pretending it is something else.

I'm the first to condemn plagiarism, so I'm not sure this attack fits the fact......oh, wait, that doesn't matter, of course.

Why don't you and other Examiner contributors get together to edit each others work or something? I know it's not that well paid, but any press ('free' or not) that is self-editing, will eventually end up screwing up to a point were it either gets into serious trouble, or simply fails to maintain credibility, and consequently struggles to stay afloat. Everyone knows the pitfalls that come with editing yourself - it's why papers have large editing teams.

What annoys me off about The Examiner (you could pass this on to them) is that it is one of those "nation-wide" websites that is clearly US-only, but gives no direct indication of this. It just gives the impression that Americans think the entire internet is American, and it annoys Brits like me all the time (although casually annoying Brit's is national pastime in the US, I do realise that). I'm not asking for it to be dotted with flags (it's mercifully free of that) - just provide the words 'USA' or 'America' somewhere on the homepage (or to actually be se-friendly, on each page). It can't be that hard.

You haven't checked back on the article, I'm sure; but I did make some attempt to modify the text to appease you and your Nazi-like attempt to stifle the free press.

It's my homage to the departed Mike Godwin, Mr. Fox. I'm glad that you finally recognize what an embarrassment you are, though. So, we're making progress.

"Press" ha!

Maybe someday, you'll understand the difference between facts and facts embelished to illustrate The Truth ™.

If we're stooping to Nazi analogies, can I suggest your concept of objectivity is one Goebbels would have been proud of.

If we're all gonna throw 'Nazi' at each other, can I be Colonel Klink?

As long as I can yell "Dummkopf!" at least once between each commercial break .

Foxy Mama ain't a mister...she's a hot chili mama!

*adjusts monocle*
Your line is "I know nozzing!"
Dummkopf!

By 'editor' btw I mean someone who asks the pertinent questions, not necessarily double-checks all the research. It seems to me that in a cheeky kind of way you use WR for this. You clearly have a pretty thick skin!



That would be outstanding.

Pssst...

Everybody but Doc...

When do you think Doc is going to ken to the fact that I am, indeed, using Examiner.com as an attack platform, and not as a segue into a new career in reputable "free press" journalism? Besides, I thought Wikipedia and its ilk are killing that very industry. Why would Doc be pushing me to align with a journalism trade that he's simultaneously helping to put out of business? Didn't he get Jimbo's memo that the future of journalism is citizen journalism? I am just obeying Jimbo's call.

I would have put this in the 300 Club, but Doc can also read there.

Only if I can be Batman and Lar can be Robin: