Hailey
1
I’ve been looking the copyviobot’s contributions and choosing some random articles from there to blank. Is it okay to blank them and remove all content even if it’s a month old? Also, most of the authors aren’t even active, so I don’t see the need to message them. However, is it necessary to message them anyway and put “notified” in the template?
Anna
2
I think it’s fine to do the blanking and follow-up if you’d like, Hailey. The promotion/demotion system has definitely lessened the burden of copyvios a little since we launched the newer NAB system. Some boosters/patrollers do still notify, but since the article isn’t out live yet and the template has info about who they can contact if they want it removed, it’s been less of a pressing need with new NAB.
In many cases, we also try to avoid promoting that kind of cross-posted, word-for-word content these days, anyway, since it’s been such a spammer loophole in the past. So even if the author lets us know they have permission, that doesn’t necessarily mean the article is ready to go live without more editing. I think the part of the process that’s still really important is just to make sure the article is demoted unless/until it gets redone from a unique/helpful angle. The notifying/followup can still be helpful if you want to actively help the authors out, but it’s less crucial than it used to be (when all content went live right away, and we might have potential copyvio issues going live for readers right away).
Hailey
3
Okay, thanks for the advice, but do you still have to notify authors even if they’ve been off wikiHow for a long time and do not seem to be editing anymore?
Anna
4
I don’t think it’s strictly necessary to notify them when it was long ago - but I probably wouldn’t change the template to “notified” if you haven’t actually told them. That might just get confusing if any admins are looking through the categories to find older copyvios to delete there.
With the newer NAB system, if you’re not actually looking to notify/help authors, then there isn’t the same big need to blank the topics anymore (since they’re demoted anyway). So I’d probably either leave them as they are, or blank/change the template if you have actually notified them. Maybe at some point we’ll do a bout of bot cleanup to get rid of very old, untouched copyvios where the author never came back to have it removed, or something like that. But for now, if they’re not out live for readers, it’s not too pressing an issue, so it’s mostly up to you whether you’re interested in helping any well-meaning authors that way or not (I wouldn’t worry too much about the spammers, though! They probably don’t need any more encouragement!).
Surprisingly, we do sometimes get responses from “no edits in months” editors. It’s rare, of course, but some do respond to a “you have a Talk Page message” email. As Anna has said, blanking is less critical nowadays as that demotion thing works well. Notifying is useful for Admins if you have the time, but again not essential.
Anna
7
I was hoping you might pop into this one @Davecrosby
! Was I right that for you blanking without notifying might be confusing when you’re processing articles? Don’t want to steer Hailey wrong on that one, so do correct me if I’m out of order with my guess!
If the original purpose of blanking was to hide the content, then it’s not really so important with demotions, but if it’s more about your flow/process in review, then do say if it’s either a good or bad step to take. Happy to adjust my own approach as well (if I see copyvios now, I typically notify, adjust the template to “notifiedcopyvio,” and blank, but happy to change tracks if it’s better to do something different).
Anna, your approach is great. But, as you surmise, the blanking is no longer required as it was purely content hiding. If blanking happens though it effects nothing in my workflow, all is good.
Hailey
10
I think I will not blank the article to allow reviewers look at the content to make sure it was plagiarized or not, and send a message to the author instead.
