Kahler v. Kansas ( talk| | history| logs| links| watch) ( restore)

I believe that this page was incorrectly deleted as a copyright violation. It was tagged in error by a user who claimed that it was an unambiguous copy of the entire content of "The Atlantic" online newspaper. However, if you review the contents you can see that the only section that was copied from The Atlantic was a paragraph blockquote from a Supreme Court opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer, which was properly attributed to the original source United States Reports which contained the dissent. All other content was original prose by me and was not copied or closely paraphrased to the original source. I would like to request a review of the deletion. If I inadvertently copied anything without proper attribution or if the admins or other editors would like to see any other changes I am completely supportive of making any changes but I do not think that it is necessary to delete the entire article. I attempted to reach out to the closing administrator several times but my comments were removed without response or acknowledgment and I received hostile messages on my talk page from others. Omanlured ( talk) 16:25, 5 December 2019 (UTC) reply

I've been dropping contents from this revision into Ctrl+F of the alleged source article and I can't tell what the copyvio is. The only things similar are the blockquotes and these aren't even by The Atlantic to begin with. Overturn. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk) 17:15, 5 December 2019 (UTC) reply

I am not convinced by the close paraphrasing argument laid out below. After checking some paragraphs against the article, I can't find any close paraphrase at all. The behaviour of other editors is not on topic in a deletion review, we only review the propriety of deletions and other deletion discussion outcomes here.It is indeed correct to first ask the deleting admin for commentary, but I don't see this as a dealbreaker. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk) 22:59, 5 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Amending my comment: Omanlured did in fact ask on Anthony's talk page first with a very reasonably worded and civil comment that Michepman then removed with the summary "DO not harass the closing admin ". Omanlured then readded a similar comment here that was removed by Michepman again with an accusation of harassment. Then Omanlured opened the DRV and notified Anthony. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk) 23:06, 5 December 2019 (UTC) reply

As noted, the talk page behavior by Omanlured is not at issue here and cannot be discussed. The importance is to properly follow WP:COPYVIO which was not done here. The closing administrator observed the copy violation material and deleted (ref the edit summary provided by Anthony which has a link to the direct source of the copied material). Unfortunately I don’t have access to the deleted article so I cant personally do the side by side comparison with exact quotes from memory but it was clear to both of us that the authors of the article copied too extensively from the sources and failed to include the proper attribution. Michepman ( talk) 23:32, 5 December 2019 (UTC) reply

• Overturn. I'm not seeing any copyvio either. User:Michepman tagged it, and User:Anthony Bradbury deleted it. Could either of you please point out what you think the copyvio was? -- RoySmith (talk) 18:19, 5 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Thank you for your responses. For what it's worth, judicial opinions cannot be copyrighted in the US (an issue which incidentally is related to litigation currently pending before the US Supreme Court). I could understand if the excerpt contained copyrighted annotations or analysis, but the text I used was cross-referenced directly to 568 US (which can be read at the bottom of page 2 and the start of page 3 here and I included that citation at the end of the paragraph using the syntax found in Template:Cite court. Omanlured ( talk) 18:51, 5 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Overturn can't see any copyvio. The "At the Supreme Court" section does seem to be paraphrasing part of the Atlantic piece but I don't think it's close enough to be a problem. I ran it through a copyvio detector and all it found was the Breyer quote. As noted above this is in the public domain and even if it wasn't that still wouldn't qualify the page for G12 speedy deletion, since it could easily be removed. Hut 8.5 19:54, 5 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Overturn, clearly not unambiguous. Who tagged it? Michepman ( talk · contribs), on a quick inspections, seems to need a severe warning for removing a reasonable post on the deleting admins usertalk page, and for their posts at User talk:Omanlured. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 21:21, 5 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Please review Wikipedia policies on harassment, tendentious editing, as well as the required talk page notifications per WP:Warning. Michepman ( talk) 22:53, 5 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Endorse deletion per nom. Clear copyvio issues which persist even to the earliest diffs. As a reminder, please review WP:COPYVIO — close paraphrases and copying large tracts of text can create problems for Wikipedia’s licensing of content and has to be deleted quickly to remain in compliance with both copyright law and Wikipedia’s official guidelines. Ctrl+F searches are not sufficient grounds to overturn a decision by an experienced administrator, and IMHO it is problematic that there was a rush to open this discussion without giving the closing administrator a chance to weigh in. Michepman ( talk) 22:48, 5 December 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Michepman: I'll repeat my request above; please provide specific examples. What sentence, phrase, paragraph, whatever in the deleted page is a copy (or close paraphrase) of the "The Atlantic" article, and where does it appear in the original? I'm pretty hard-nosed when it comes to copyvios, but I'm just not seeing any when I look on my own. Your specific guidance would be useful. If you can demonstrate to me that a copyvio exists and can't be easily fixed, I'll be happy to change my !vote to endorse. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply

@ RoySmith: - Unfortunately, I tagged this article for speedy deletion yesterday and did not copy it down anywhere before it was deleted by an administrator. As a non-admin I do not have access to deleted articles and cannot directly reference/compare the exact contents of the deleted articles. I recommend waiting for the closing admin to stop by and provide additional context before jumping to any hasty conclusions. Michepman ( talk) 02:15, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Michepman: Now that I've temp undeleted, I'll reiterate the above: Which " large chunks of the article were taken directly from The Atlantic without proper attribution", specifically, and I'll raise you what on earth led you to label this as "harassment", twice? — Cryptic 12:57, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply

• Comment - I don't know how non-admins can take part in this deletion review when we are being asked whether there was copyright violation when the document in question has been deleted due to the alleged copyright violation. It appears that multiple administrators, who have seen the deleted document, agree that it was not copyright violation. What I can see, based on the the history of reversions of User talk:Anthony Bradbury, is a blatant conduct issue in the form of talk page guideline violations, but this is not a conduct forum. So can someone tell us what the purpose of this deletion review is? Robert McClenon ( talk) 02:05, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Comment - I am confused by the statement above by User:Michepman. They say: "IMHO it is problematic that there was a rush to open this discussion without giving the closing administrator a chance to weigh in." Unless I have misread this, it is Michepman (or a troll editing from the compromised account of Michepman) who prevented a discussion with the closing administrator. Robert McClenon ( talk) 02:10, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply

  Robert McClenon - I appreciate your concern but it is important to (as you stated) avoid derailing the discussion by entering into a discussion of user conduct. This discussion should remain focused on the topic of WP:COPYVIO and WP:SPEEDY and should not digress into areas relating to userspace interactions. And for what it is worth, if you lack subject matter expertise or are not familiar enough with the original article to weigh in, there's no need to comment at all. Michepman ( talk) 02:15, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply

• Overturn I don't see direct copying or close paraphrase here. The quote from the previous US Supreme Court dissent is direct, but it is marked and attributed as a quote from the opinion, which The Atlantic also quoted. It has bveen established since Wheaton v. Peters 8 Pet 591 (1834) that there is no copyright in Supreme Court opinions. This is now merely an instance of the rule that works of the US Federal Government have no copyright protection. As to the other parts of the article, i have compared the last versin of the deleted article with the article from The Atlantic. Several sections, particularly the section "Legislative activity" and "Kahler murder case" cover much the same set of facts, presented in a natural (chronological) order, as parts of the Atlantic article, but without detaild simialrity of sentence structure.

  The closest paraphras is in the section of the deleted article "At the Supreme Court". This includes the paragraph:

  Kahler's argument is that the M'naghten rule represents the codification of a legal concept that goes back all the way to Medieval common law and should be considered part of the due process of law.[2] His argument asserts that, for centuries, defendants were held culpable only when they were able to distinguish between right and wrong and that people who were legally insane did not have the capacity to do so.[11] The state's argument emphasized the importance of federalism, allowing states the autonomy to make their own laws within the framework of the state and federal constitutions. The state also noted that the definition of insanity has varied in different ways throughout history and that one version (the M'naghten rule) should not be viewed as an inherent aspect of due process.[2][11]([2] is a citation to the Atlantic article, and [11]] to an article in SCOTUSblog an official publication of the Court, and so public domain)

  The corresponding section of the Atlantic article reads:

  Kahler’s brief suggests that M’Naghten was not a newfangled Victorian notion, but rather a codification of common-law principles that go back to medieval English law. If that is so, it is easy to conclude that it must be a part of “due process of law.”

  That may be a bit close, and perhaps should be reworded, but is not in my view enough of an issue to simply speedy delete the article. I rather suspect that the automated copyright tool highlighted the SC quote, and this raised its "percentage chance" significantly. I have observed in many pages tagged for g12 that the automated tool does not recognize and exclude text properly marked as a quotation. Userds need to allow for this. DES ^(talk) _{DESiegel Contribs} 04:50, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply

  The tool won't run on a delted article, so i cna't check what it might have said without doing an undelete. DES ^(talk) _{DESiegel Contribs} 05:41, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply

• Comment I would favor a temp undelte, but perhaps there is a practice agaisnt doing so for an alleged G12. DES ^(talk) _{DESiegel Contribs} 04:50, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I'm not sure if it's codified anywhere, but I'm personally reluctant to do it unless I'm completely convinced it's not a copyright problem. I mean, I did it yesterday, but only after confirming it was an error where the other source copied Wikipedia. Wily D 05:57, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Multiple admins, including myself, can't find even a prima facie case for copyright infringement here, but directing users to google caches is somehow preferable? No. I've temp undeleted. — Cryptic 12:50, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Comment It would be unusual for there to be no record on the web of any version of a deleted article and Google presently obliges. [1] So if that is not infringing copyright then WP:G12 did not apply. Looking at the comparison presented above considering pagiarism, I disagree with the comment "may be a bit close, and perhaps should be reworded". It is not close and need not be reworded. Thincat ( talk) 10:15, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Close paraphrasing is an issue I didn't really grok until Rlevse so dramatically illuminated it for us all. I'm delighted that there are Wikipedians patrolling for it because it's potentially a big issue on Wikipedia, which is rightly very source-oriented and so there's a temptation to follow the sources a little too closely. Well done to them! They're doing important work that I very much value.

  I have read the deleted article linked by Thincat above and compared it with the alleged source article and I don't see close paraphrasing. But, crucially, I can only see the one revision and I don't know how big the history is. It's important that all the revisions are checked.— S Marshall  T/ C 10:52, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply

• Yes, any copyright-infringing versions should be deleted. But G12 only leads to article deletion if all versions are infringing. I understand that G12 article deletion might be used WP:IAR as an emergency measure, prior to a careful look but then such an investigation should then be started (and certainly not impeded) by the person placing the G12 or the deleting admin. Thincat ( talk) 11:24, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply

• • • With reference to the preceding comment, I as deleting admin clearly have in no way impeded the process, although an editor who edited my talk page might perhaps be accused of doing so. In view of the significant expressed opinion here in favour of overturning my deletion, I raise no objection and make no argument against doing so. ---- Anthony Bradbury ^"talk" 11:38, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply
      • Although I note what Thincat says, I think the sequence is important here. It would be significantly unfortunate if a copyright-violating revision were restored as a result of a DRV and therefore before the article could be restored, the restoring sysop would need to check that there are no copyvios in the history. I wouldn't want the G12 overturned until we had that assurance.— S Marshall  T/ C 11:45, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply
      • @Anthony Bradbury: No, No, no, my apologies. Rather, I was regarding the edits made (not by you) to your talk page ( diff and diff) as impeding discussion. Thincat ( talk) 11:53, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• (Already made an overturn argument above; I am putting another post here so that it is next to S Marshall's) One way to go about this - if close paraphrasing is still a problem - would be to recreate the page with {{subst:copyvio|2=url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/question-heart-kahler-v-kansas/599497/}}, undeleting the previous history and open a WP:CP investigation. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk) 12:54, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Now that Cryptic's restored the article history, I can see that the whole thing is clean. We aren't looking at a close paraphrasing issue here. Speedy close the DRV as overturn and restore. Michepman's behaviour in this demonstrates that he's in need of support and direction from a sysop, which should be pursued in another venue.— S Marshall  T/ C 13:24, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Overturn and restore The only copied text - which does appear to be copied from the Atlantic because of the "but..." (which ignored the "in Idaho") - is clearly not a copyright violation as others have noted. Should be restored. We will all miss sometimes at tagging copyvios, hopefully infrequently, but I'm concerned about the fact the user who tagged this as a copyvio doubled down at the DRV for not recongising their mistake. SportingFlyer T· C 15:30, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Speedily overturn and restore – G12 is for unambiguous copyright violation. Even if it was close paraphrasing (and I don't believe so), it's certainly not unambiguous. Also, count me among those who would appreciate it if an admin had a word with Michepman about tagging an article, repeatedly removing the author's posts from the deleting admin's talk page (with false accusations of harassment!) and an instruction to go to DRV, then arguing in the DRV that the author should have discussed it with the deleting admin first. What's unambiguous to me is that this is bad faith behavior that violates a number of our policies. I hope we don't see that again. Oh, and hats off to Omanlured for maintaining collegiality and patiently following the process through what must have been a very frustrating experience. Thanks for writing the article, Omanlured! – Leviv ich 19:55, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Thanks @ Levivich:! I am just glad that the article is salvageable. When I was restricted from communicating to the admin directly, I started reading the deletion rules but was unsure of the nuances between "request for undeletion" and "deletion review"; I figured I had a 50/50 chance of choosing the right option haha Omanlured ( talk) 21:32, 6 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Comment – "The judgement of the Administrator of Appeals is reversed and the article is restored for further editing consistent with this opinion." BenbowInn ( talk) 02:02, 7 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Speedy overturn. Looking at Michepman's talk page, I think you can make a good case that this was a bad-faith nomination, though for what reason I can't fathom. There's clearly no copyright violation here. Mackensen (talk) 02:46, 7 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Speedy overturn and restore – G12 is was not an appropriate course. Lightburst ( talk) 15:54, 8 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Overturn though I suspect this article would probably fail a regular WP:AFD if submitted. 107.77.202.56 ( talk) 17:06, 9 December 2019 (UTC) reply

• I think it would be fine at AfD. The Atlantic article which this was supposed to be a copyvio of represents significant coverage of the case. Even without it US Supreme Court decisions are very likely to get some coverage/commmentary. It would only take 1-2 legal journals to run articles on it to pass the notability standard. Hut 8.5 19:10, 9 December 2019 (UTC) reply

• I suspect this comment from an IP was just trolling, but in case anybody thinks there's not enough WP:RS, here's a few more:

• "Supreme Court Opens New Term With Argument on Insanity Defense". nytimes.com. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
• "Supreme Court to examine whether unanimous juries are required for criminal convictions". Washington Post. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
• "High Court to Consider if States Can Abolish Insanity Defense (1)". news.bloomberglaw.com. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
• "Supreme Court to decide if insanity defense and unanimous jury are required nationwide". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 9 December 2019. Kahler
• "Kansas death penalty case has implications for mentally ill". AP NEWS. Retrieved 9 December 2019.

I tried to cover both sides of the political spectrum, but the One America News Network article that google found, now 404's. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:12, 9 December 2019 (UTC) reply

• Overturn. Examining this version of the undeleted article, the last before Michepman began to allege possible copyvio, I also found no copyvio regarding the Atlantic article— DESiegel's example of possibly slightly close paraphrase strikes me as pretty damned good summarizing of a legal point—and running Earwig turned up short phrases and the indented quotation from the Supreme Court ruling. Indented quotations are as good as quotations in quotation marks, and the footnoting looks fine. I conclude that the article was nominated in error as copyvio and should be restored. Yngvadottir ( talk) 19:51, 10 December 2019 (UTC) reply
• Snow Close Multiple admins and experienced non-admin editors have looked at this and given an opinion. So far the only editor who indicated endorsement of the deletion is Michepman, who tagged it as a copyvio, and who has still not pointed out just what passages s/he felt to be copyright issues, although the text has now been availabe for 4 days (since 6 December), and Michepman posted [2] indicating awareness of that temp restoration later that same day. I would really like to know what in the tagged revision led that editor to place the tags. DES ^(talk) _{DESiegel Contribs} 20:48, 10 December 2019 (UTC) reply