User talk:Martinevans123

Semi-retired

This user is no longer active on Wikipedia.

Are you doing ok?

Hi Martin, how are you doing? Anna (talk) 11:13, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

Same thought here. Hope you are well. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:00, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, thanks Sluzzelin, I am very well. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:23, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Hi Anna. I am doing ok, thanks. Hope you are well. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:21, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

You made my day! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:31, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

awwww, thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:37, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Hooray! I'm glad to hear from you! --Tryptofish (talk) 19:56, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, Trypto. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:01, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

story · music · places

thanks for the music, with extra plenty of music, and not even yet today's magnificent concert, with Pinchas Zukerman stepping in. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:12, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Did I miss a contretemps? I hope life and WP are treating you well. Have a rose. 'Tis the season.

Do you think they pitch Christmas as "the season to be jolly" because it rhymes with 'holly'? Which ever way up, they were very wrong. May is the season for jollity. December is for sleeping. I hope there is bright sunshine next week where you are. And roses. Anna (talk) 19:32, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Wow. Looks more like a gay peony to me!

Many thanks, Anna. If you did miss IT, glad I missed it too! " As they say in Stratford... "A rose by any other name would sound as good".... thankyou Dave Swarbrick Martinevans123 (talk) 19:42, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Here, here! And I love that rose photo! (Old-fashioned roses are a passion of mine.) --Tryptofish (talk) 19:45, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Cool. More of a new-fashioned indie fan myself! [1] Martinevans123 (talk) 19:53, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Well, since the rose is Jekyll, I better go hide. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:03, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Better just go park it, dude. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:13, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Speaking of gay peonies: [2]. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:12, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, that one is deffo Euro LGBT. Sing it Ryan! [3] Martinevans123 (talk) 21:21, 16 May 2026 (UTC) (will I get banned for this? **sob**)

Well, here in the US, bigotry is back in style. But, to play it safe, maybe we both should go hide. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:53, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

Tricky on a site like this one!. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:56, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

music for you, waiting to be explored --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:48, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for your help with Felicity Lott, - my story today, - listen! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:26, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm going to nominate her for GA today, when people are looking. Could you please translate all foreign ref titles if you do one? 'cause consistency in such matters that don't matter is wanted by reviewers. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:25, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

Ha. I was hoping you could do the other German ones without having to use GoogleTranslate! Martinevans123 (talk) 11:27, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

I could, and I might, but nothing on top of my todo - just uploaded a few more flower pics, for example --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:57, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

look! - and they mentioned the song I also picked ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:54, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Trypto, I'm a rose nut too - I love propagating. Is the orange baby king] trying to ban gay peonies? Putting tariffs on all pink flowers? A clear and present threat to the American people, no doubt. Anna (talk)

Yeah, there's not much I can defend about what's happening in the colony these days. As for roses, I'm very proud of Sissinghurst Castle Garden, and its section on roses. But "I love propagating" can be read more than one way! --Tryptofish (talk) 17:12, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Proud of the article or the garden? Both are great. I was there last year (the garden) and try to go regularly (not easy as I don't have a car). There is a fab B&B on site - a great treat to stay there. I love Dixter too - about 20 mins away. I hope to back in July. I love propagating roses (not popping sprogs). I have studied it for the past ten years or so and can finally get healthy rose plants from cuttings. It's a long game, but then roses are a long game. I like being involved in projects where we consider how our planting will evolve over ten (or 100) years. It's the opposite of social media. Anna (talk) 17:43, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

I meant the article. Roses from cuttings, rather than from budding: that's great! --Tryptofish (talk) 17:47, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Copyright, again and again

This edit reintroduces a paragraph that is directly copied from the National Heritage List for the Church of St Mary. This text is copyrighted, per the NHL website: "All content, designs, text, graphics, software compilations and source codes on this website are the copyright of Historic England and/or its content providers. Reproduction of part or all of the contents of this website in any form is prohibited other than for individual use only".

You cannot, under any circumstances, copy text from anywhere unless you can point specifically to it being under a legitimate free license. You cannot assume, guess, or hop that the text is free. Given your history of copyright problems, you specifically ought to avoid reintroducing text that other editors removed from articles you wrote, because in my opinion you cannot be trusted to verify whether or not it is copyrighted. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:20, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Apologies, thank you for checking. Your edit summary here said it was referenced to the church pamphlet by Tricker (2011). I guess you may want to request revdel. What about this re-write:

"St Mary’s is in the East Anglian style and is long and large. There is a west door and in the lowest stage there are trefoiled lancets. In the second and bell stages there are Y-tracery windows in the second stage and bell stage. The western tower may have originated in the late 12th century and has three stages. In the later 13th or early 14th century it was rebuilt. The stair turret is polygonal, but it does not reach the top of the tower."

Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:25, 17 May 2026 (UTC) p.s. what is your understanding of the phrase "in any form"?

Respectfully, we're about to have the same conversation we already had back in 2022, where I expressed that your rewrites are insufficient. Simply lightly editing a whole paragraph is insufficient to make it acceptable. All that does is turn it into close paraphrasing, which is still a copyright issue. Based on previous history, I'm not willing to attempt to coach you on doing rewrites, because nothing anyone tells you about this seems to stick. It's been four years and you're still doing the same thing, which indicates to me that further attempts to assist you will not make any more difference.

My understanding of the phrase "in any form" is the straightforward common sense one - it's copyrighted text and you can't copy it into Wikipedia (or anywhere else). Write it in your own words, then cite. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:01, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

I see. Sorry but I am unable to suggest any synonyms for those technical architectural terms. Nor, for example, for words such as "long", "large", "stage", "century", etc. Sorry also that you feel you cannot make any further attempts to assist and that you think I cannot be trusted. I'm still a bit unsure about the difference between "in any form" and "in exact form"; surely "in any form" includes re-writes of these facts in one's own words? Martinevans123 (talk) 08:12, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

It's not about synonyms, Martin, it's about the fact that you can't just lift an entire paragraph, fiddle it lightly, and call it a day when the word choice, facts presented, and order of sentences are all obviously borrowed from the source. If you can look at a source and tell immediately that the entire paragraph in the article was taken from the source, you're not writing in your own words.

This is the same thing you were doing in 2022 - I'll quote myself: "what you've done with this version is to remove some detail and slightly reorder some sentences. It's still fundamentally the same text as the version I looked at a week ago, which means it is still recognizably taken from the source."

There is a difference between actually writing in your own words, cited to a source, and doing close paraphrasing, which is what you're still doing. I'm not arguing with you about it, I'm not lawyering about the definition of "reproduction", I'm done. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:28, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

OK, maybe it's best if I'm done too. Goodbye. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:31, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Facepalm The first day back? Martin, don't just go away. If you want, I'll give a second try to trying to working with you to fix it. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:14, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, but after four years we're back to square one, it seems. Sorry I even linked PMC in my edit summary. It's not worth the hassle. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:26, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Not to jump in uninvited on something that seems to be settled. That paraphrase is definitely too close. Let me show you how I would paraphrase that:

St. Mary's was constructed in the usual fashion for East Anglia. It is of substantial size and considerably long. Possibly originating in the late 12th century, the west tower was rebuilt in the late 13th or early 14th century. There are three stages to the tower; the lowest stage has a west door and trefoiled lancets, while the second and bell stages have Y-tracery windows. The south stair is polygonal and does not reach the top of the church tower.

You need to write new sentences and use a different structure. You need to restate what it says in your own words, not hack up the existing sentences you are quoted. This definitely gets to be a WP:CIR issue. Also not a difficult skill to learn. —DIYeditor (talk) 19:05, 19 May 2026 (UTC) edited 19:20, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I'll let you. Thanks for your contribution. But I see, not only untrustworthy, but also incompetent. I'd be tempted to put "'The tower has three stages: ", to be clearer. And I'd have linked trefoiled lancets, Y-tracery and south stair turret. Great to hear it's not difficult. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:19, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I had just gone back and changed the word to "there are three stages to the tower" before I saw your reply. It was just meant to be an illustration not a polished product. I'm not familiar with the topic, I'd have to research the terms more to do a final job. —DIYeditor (talk) 19:21, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

You're very welcome to go ahead and "do a final job" on this article. Perhaps with the help of my dear friend and mentor Tryptofish? If you go back to the article's creation in 2012, before it was "presumptively stubified" in 2022, you'll see what I had wanted to include. It's such a shame that such a huge church still has such a short article. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:26, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

If you don't want to work on it that's up to you. I'm not familiar with why there might be heightened emotions in this situation. CIR isn't an accusation, it's just a fact. Wikipedia editors are expected to be competent to paraphrase material they are quoting, and to be trusted not to violate copyrights. Seems foundational to the project doesn't it? It'd be much easier just not to violate copyrights and continue editing Wikipedia wouldn't it?

Also the paraphrasing I did is really bare minimum. That is the least amount the source material should be transformed. It'd be better to transform it more, as much as you possibly can. —DIYeditor (talk) 19:33, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, thought that was your best shot at a lesson for me. You’ve been here since 2017, me since 2007. The heightened emotion seems to have arisen from my incompetence and untrustworthiness. Yes, without the violation, the encyclopedia is safer without me. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:43, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

This is your material right? If you think that's a paraphrasing of this then either I am very confused or you are? Can you explain what is happening for me? I don't understand the apparent histrionics and feel like I am missing some necessary context. —DIYeditor (talk) 19:50, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, no. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:55, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Well I don't remember anything about you or your editing so I have no bias. You can't be surprised that someone suspects you are acting a little unusually. I was just curious about the dispute here, I looked at the paraphrasing in question compared to the source, and I thought that whatever is going on, this is not ok paraphrasing. So if you don't care to explain that's fine as well. I'm sorry for whatever is causing you drama. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:31, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Not sure there’s any “dispute”. So sorry if someone thinks I’m “acting a little unusually”. From my perspective it all looks quite logical. My beef with PMC centered on the claim it had anything to do with Tricker (2011). Martinevans123 (talk) 20:42, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Martin, as you say, the church deserves a better article than it currently has. And there is an abundance of sourcing and of notability; almost two pages in Pevsner, entry in Jenkins, one of Suffolk’s largest, monuments by Eric Gill, Maggi Hambling, etc. etc. Why don’t we work it up together over the next week. I could do with a distraction just now. KJP1 (talk) 20:02, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Hello KJP. So good to see you. And positive as ever. Yes agree, an abundance. Sorry, am currently too busy being histrionic diva quit retired, it seems. At last PMC has given up. I need a cause to hang onto...: [4]. I might change my mind tomorrow (?) Martinevans123 (talk) 20:15, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

It’s good to see you back too, Martin. My Wikiworld is diminished without you around. And no rush. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow… Just as suits. KJP1 (talk) 20:21, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

So much here for me to reply to! Thank you, Martin, for the excessively kind words. And, in spite of Martin having gone to the retirement home, he is also hanging out quite productively at (at least) Talk:St Mary's Church, Hadleigh, where he and I are having a fun time sorting out how not to paraphrase too closely. I could definitely use some help from other editors, so please let me suggest that we localize all the discussion about that page over there, as opposed to here. I'd also like to ask that any editors who join us there work with the way that I'm trying to make this a learning experience, rather than at cross purposes with that, thanks.

And as for my soliloquizing friend KJP1, I'm happy to see you back around, too. Turns out he just got another GA today, congrats! And over at another British wiki-dust-up, this one at Talk:Carlton House Terrace (what is it with you lot? don't you know that we Amerricuns are supposed to be the bitter ones around here? get with the program!), there's been a bit of forward progress, in finding some better sources. But that's another page where I'll shamelessly canvass for more eyes. (And KJP1, if you want any advice from me about the dispute, please don't hesitate to ask.) --Tryptofish (talk) 20:50, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, agree we should discuss at Talk:St Mary's Church, Hadleigh. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:57, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

He who laughs last, laughs loudest!

• Martin seems to be following the same path as Gavin.collins and ClemRutter but is wise to hold back rather than fighting to the finish. I am reminded of 1066 and All That which described the sides in another conflict as the Roundheads (who were Right but Repulsive) and the Cavaliers (who were Wrong but Wromantic). Martin is undoubtedly a Laughing Cavalier, eh? Andrew🐉(talk) 12:41, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

So, after multiple copyvio blocks, and two days after the start of this section, you made this edit[5]

• "In March 2025 Widdicombe revealed that severe burnout led to him suffering a "mental collapse", in 2022. experienced "horrific panic-attack-led insomnia" during the breakdown. Writing in the The i Paper, Widdicombe said: "Like a lot of people who think there’s some sort of shame or stigma involved, I was initially very resistant to taking antidepressants." He undertook multiple rounds of talking therapy and began meditating in order to "readjust that feeling of inadequacy and reorganise his priorities.""

Source[6]

• "Josh Widdicombe has revealed severe burnout led to him suffering a “mental collapse” in 2022. [...] experienced “horrific panic-attack-led insomnia” during the breakdown. [...] Writing in The i Paper, Widdicombe said: “Like a lot of people who think there’s some sort of shame or stigma involved, I was initially very resistant to taking antidepressants. [...] The comedian underwent multiple rounds of talking therapy and began meditating in order to “readjust that feeling” of inadequacy and reorganise his priorities."

I have no idea why people here keep spending their time explaining copyvio to you and holding your hands as if with just a little bit of mentoring this will suddenly stop happening. Fram (talk) 13:19, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Taking a text and then rewording it so that it presents exactly the same facts but uses different words in a different order is a non-trivial puzzle. People who don't find this easy are obviously likely to give up quickly and use shortcuts such as close paraphrase. LLM technology is the sensible answer now as such tools are able to do this easily but the witch hunters are trying to stop that too.

The challenge is reconciling several different goals:

1. Working closely from sources to avoid "original research"
2. Accurately copying the facts from the sources
3. Not copying the language of the sources
4. Not using tools such as LLMs to do this automatically
5. Doing this cheaply without being paid

These constraints are not compatible and so there is a natural tension between them. It's like the project management triangle, ""Good, fast, cheap. Choose two." And Gavin Collins insisted that if you changed the language of the sources then you were engaging in original research. This would generate copyright issues and so he had to go but he had a point. To do this properly you have to distil the semantics out of the text using approaches like WikiData and the Abstract Wikipedia. But Fram doesn't like those either, does he?

An interesting question is why the copyright enforcers on Wikipedia are so zealous. I don't get the impression that they actually care about the copyright holders or the articles in question; it just seems to be a game pursued for its own sake. The WMF and the copyright holders don't seem so concerned about it as they seem to give the matter little attention and priority. Meanwhile other major sites on the Internet such as Google, the Internet Archive and ChatGPT are quite aggressive in pushing the boundaries of copyright and fair use. This is giving them a big edge while Wikipedia hobbles itself.

Anyway, I just ran the current FA through Earwig to see what it could find. It gets a score of 25% which seems due to liberal use of quotations. Quotations get hassle too and so there isn't a risk-free approach. So it goes. I don't have an easy answer but it seems good to understand its difficulty.

Andrew🐉(talk) 15:28, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

"These constraints are not compatible"? Most editors have no issue combining these constraints, and had no issues during the decades that LLMs weren't available. While I don't like Abstract Wikipedia (I have no issue with Wikidata as a concept, just not most of its applications on enwiki), I have no idea what my likes or dislikes have to do with whether Martinevans followed policies or not. Fram (talk) 15:38, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

"Most editors"? According to WP:EDITORS, 70% of accounts don't make even one edit. And the most prolific editors tend to be gnomes that make lots of content-free edits or create cookie-cutter stubs like Lugnuts. The proportion of editors that add enough text to risk copyright concern is quite tiny.

It would be interesting to see some stats about the edits that add substantial blocks of text. What proportion of these are cut/paste from external sources? How many are close paraphrases of some sort? How many are LLM generated? And how many are formulaic description of standard topics like species, footballers and the like? My impression is that writing in one's own words, having digested a multiplicity of sources without original research or synthesis is almost non-existent. This idealised model of editing is utterly unrealistic.

Andrew🐉(talk) 16:22, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

And yet most articles with actual non-boilerplate text are not copyright violations, and other editors who add too many copyright violations anyway are blocked. This model has served us well for 25 years now. If you want to dispute the policy, the best place would be the policy talk page. But disagreeing with policy to protect oe editor is not really a good approach. I don't think continuing this metadiscussion here is useful. Fram (talk) 16:46, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Neither do I. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:01, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

The point is that Fram seems to be suggesting that Martin is exceptional but my impression is that their approach is not that unusual – they are perhaps just more careless or carefree than other editors who attempt this sort of work. It still seems useful to explore how this arises because it's not unusual.

As I indicated above, I've seen others fall foul of this such as ClemRutter who has been indeffed for about 5 years now. Now Clem was a teacher and so was presumably proficient at writing to some extent. They are retired now and rather aged so perhaps they lacked the energy or enthusiasm for rewriting text which seemed already good enough. I think of this as a form of writer's block; a reluctance to change an authoritative text for fear of making it worse.

One factor in this might be general education. When I was in school, I got an English language O-level without any difficulty. That covered basic writing skills but when I went to university I had to pass a separate Use of English qualification. The main thing that sticks in my mind about this is that the exam included a précis question. In this, a long passage had to be summarised in fewer words. I remember this especially because there had been no formal education in my ordinary English lessons about how to do this; or not that I remember. So, I had to figure out how to summarise a passage and mostly just used my common sense – cutting out fluff and focusing on the key points. This seems to be a key skill that Wikipedia writing requires.

So, with this context, please can Martin explain why they are paraphrasing too closely. Is it that they don't understand the issue; or that they don't agree with the need for it; or that they don't know how to do it because it has never been explained to them; or what?

Andrew🐉(talk) 17:43, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Andrew you are always welcome at this Talk page. And thanks for raising a very interesting set of questions. I tend to agree with you. Most of my edit there was direct quotation, inside quotation marks. Perhaps someone can tell us what the limit for quotation is, in terms of number of words or percentage content, before an addition becomes "close paraphrasing" or "copyvio". I'm happy to go back and re-phase it. Or trim. But of course if it is a copyvio, as Fram says it is, then the first action should be to delete it and, if necessary, rev-del it. If he thinks it's likely I'll commit more copyvio, he ought to block me as a preventative measure. (p.s. I got an English language A-level without any difficulty, but I don't remember having to precis anything...) Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:54, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

As I understand it, there are no hard limits for these things; it's very much a matter of degree and subjective interpretation.

Another factor that occurs to me is the time at which one was educated. When I got my education, there was no Internet, PCs, tablets, smartphones; none of these things existed then. As a vacation job when I was a student, I actually sold encyclopedias one year and they were physical books, not electronic.

So, my point is that my education didn't say much about plagiarism or the like because it was not then possible to just Google something and cut/paste it. It's much more of an issue in modern education and so presumably gets a lot more emphasis and formal attention with tools like Turnitin. Perhaps this is an issue for older editors who may take it less seriously because it hasn't been beaten into them.

Andrew🐉(talk) 18:37, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Ah yes, if only I'd had ChatGPT to write the plagiaristic bits of my undergraduate 4th-year Psychology thesis for me. Or even Claude (... it might have been a real bunker buster), I might now be a real Wiki maven. Andrew, that's a very germane point; you're always welcome here because no-one could accuse you of being an overbearing policy-wonking twat. Fram, I'm trying to imagine anyone wanting to hold your hand. But failing, alas. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:15, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

This talk section needs to be retitled "Copyright, again and again". Fram has said a couple of things that I agree with. One of them is that he wonders why other editors (that's gotta include me) keep trying to help Martin, when Martin keeps doing the same things over and over again. I'm wondering that, too. Martin, I know this must be annoying for you, and it's understandable that you don't want to feel like anyone is talking down to you. I wouldn't want that, either, if it were directed at me. But you have a real problem here, especially in terms of being able to continue as a member of the Wikipedia community. I've looked at Fram's comparison of the edit and the source, and I agree with Fram about that, too. That's not OK, and it must not keep happening. No amount of joking around is going to make that problem go away. I want to help you, I really do. But you have to want to be helped. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:07, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

I've had about enough seeing this additional incident. I don't know the social history that seems to be granting Martin so much leeway, but he simply does not understand and either cannot understand or does not want to understand. —DIYeditor (talk) 01:59, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Learning to paraphrase is part of schooling. When this is first introduced I'm not certain but it's expected by college/university. If someone cannot paraphrase a source without violating its copyright I don't see how they are qualified to edit an encyclopedia. Anyway, the rules are no copyright violations, and this is not the place to debate those rules. Martin needs to stop copying texts.

People have patiently demonstrated and described how to paraphrase things. Martin either doesn't want to do it or can't do it. This is no longer the place to discuss it, I think that's going to be ANI. It's unfortunate because Martin seems to have solid knowledge about the church topic. Without an ability to write at a basic level, that knowledge doesn't translate into good edits - also without knowing when he's reached his limits. —DIYeditor (talk) 02:10, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

DIYeditor, I share your concerns, and I'm about to start a new talk section here, where I will attempt to salvage things. But I want you to understand that, when you posted your own suggested rewrite at the article talk page, you contributed further to the problem (unintentionally, of course), by doing "Martin's writing" for him, instead of pushing him to do it himself. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:17, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm a little uncertain about the outcome, or anticipated outcome, of this "additional incident". If Fram sees it as copyright violation, I'm not sure why he hasn't already removed it and revision-deleted it, or at least opened a discussion thread at Talk:Josh Widdicombe. Since I added it three days ago, a number of other editors - including Katherine.Seymour7, MIDI, Max263, Malerooster and Spicemix - have made further edits without deleting or commenting on that addition. I guess they haven't noticed. I think most editors don't have the inclination to check. That job's left to eagle-eyed administrators who have good reason to check my text additions? I might be tempted to try again, but that might involve ignoring what you have termed the "Last-ditch proposal" in the new thread below. Is there any way we could clarify the status of that three-sentence paragraph at Josh Widdicombe before we move on? I suspect that —DIYeditor will also have a view on this. Or should I just delete it myself and request a rev-del from an admin? Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:49, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

My guess is that the simplest thing is to undo the edit you made that Fram objects to, without doing anything further, and if anyone else wants to do something further, they can do it themselves. I don't see any issues with you self-reverting. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:23, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

That job's left to eagle-eyed administrators who have good reason to check my text additions?

No. You are responsible for paraphrasing and being able to be trusted that you won't copy text nearly verbatim from the sources you're using. That's the point. We need to be able to assume you understand what paraphrasing means and that copying text is prohibited. Even paraphrasing is sketchy. As I said, the rewrite I did of that passage is the very least you could do while keeping fully within the spirit of the law and wikipedia's policies.

Can you follow instructions? Try following these that I already posted:

1. If a sentence has two different ideas in the source, and especially if one of those ideas might be found in an upcoming sentence, split the sentence up and recombine them in new ways.
2. Phrase things in a different part of speech and with different idioms than the original if possible.
3. Don't re-use any word unless the source words are the only reasonable choice.
4. Don't copy whole paragraphs even in spirit. Break things up into your own paragraphs.

I honestly at this point am not sure you are capable of following such a set of instructions. And I'm just some guy, not even an admin. I don't think there is any set of rules you would be willing or able to follow and apply. Can go over over the example I gave piece by piece and compare to the source and see what I did? I'm not confident you could do so. That becomes CIR. Not trying to give you are hard time. I'm all for nuanced and flexible application of rules. This is over the line. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:25, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

DIY, I'm still a little unsure what brought you to my Talkpage here in the first place. Could you enlighten me? Sorry, but you are suggesting I should have used your 4 instructions to re-write that paragraph? I assume that you agree with Fram it is copyvio (and so should be rev-deled)? Let me ask my question in a different way... when you see that somone has added sourced material to an article you watch, do you typically go and check that the addition is not copy-vio or close paraphrasing? Do you typically run an Earwig check? I tend to always provide source for my additions, so a visual check or Earwig comparison are generally pretty easy. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:56, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't remember what I was looking at that led me to this page. I saw that there was a question about paraphrasing which I found interesting, and I looked at it and I saw what was not even an attempt to paraphrase some text. So I said hey look, this is the kind of thing you would need to do, thinking an example would be the most helpful bit I could add. —DIYeditor (talk) 21:48, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Basically the steps to paraphrase are "easy steps to cheat copyright" and not good scholarship themselves. You are falling short of even "easy steps to cheat". —DIYeditor (talk) 23:15, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

I doubt that Fram or the others are actually interested in Widdicombe or the copyright holders. Either it's just a stick to beat you with or it's "someone is wrong on the Internet" obsessiveness.

Anyway, I just edited the passage as I saw fit – boiling it down by removing most of the complex context which was difficult to parse and just focussing on the key facts. I didn't change the key words as it would be debatable whether anxiety=panic attack or burnout=stress and so it seemed safer to stick to the words used by the sources.

AFAIC this was just routine copy-editing and we should not get too excited about copyright because such cases are de minimis.

Andrew🐉(talk) 20:26, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Too late for rev-del then? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:09, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Having a rev-del done against your account is not something to ask for. It's not good. —DIYeditor (talk) 21:59, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Not sure I understand what you mean. sorry. Rev-del of copyvio is standard practice, wherever it appears, even on this Talk page, if that is indeed what it is. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:03, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Without consulting any specific policy, prolifically causing rev-dels of your edits is going to be grounds for sanctions or blocking... —DIYeditor (talk) 22:27, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

As far as I know, admins have a duty of care to rev-del material that is a violation of copyright, provided it is practical to do so. Over the years I myself have reported many examples of copyvio (usually direct paste and copy of large amounts of text) to admins such as User:Diannaa and rev-del has usually been swiftly forthcoming. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:10, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Andrew, this is not helpful, and I'm asking you to stop. This is about more than just intellectual property rights under copyright, as important as those are. This is also about plagiarism and intellectual honesty in writing. As you said, these things can usually be fixed by routine copyediting, but Martin needs to learn how to either do that routine fixing himself, or not create a situation where other editors have to do it for him. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:32, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

I agree this is an scholarly ethics issue pure and simple. Legal and policy and everything else aside, this is not ok behavior, and we should not pretend it's ok. We are _editors_ here, volunteer or not. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:41, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

You think my editing is unethical? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:57, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm going to elbow in here, and say that plagiarism is unethical. That's not the same thing as saying that all of your editing is unethical, or that you as a person are unethical. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:02, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Isn't plagiarism when you don't provide any source(s) and pretend you've thought it up yourself? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:05, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

No, it can be that, but it can also be presenting something as though you wrote the words (here, in "Wikipedia's voice"), when it is actually words copied, or copied with minimal revision, from a source written by someone else. Citing a source doesn't get one off the hook in that situation. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:10, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Adding quotation marks generally helps? But I was still waiting for a more definitive answer to my question about proportion. cambridge.org: "the process or practice of using another person's ideas or work and pretending that it is your own". If you provide the source(s), the pretence rather fades away I feel Martinevans123 (talk) 21:16, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Adding quotation marks and attributing it in a manner that makes clear who said it removes it entirely from being plagiarism, because that's being accurate about whose words they are. But, as I remember mentioning recently, simply peppering a page with passages within quotation marks becomes WP:QUOTEFARM. Proportion does indeed matter, as does whether there are words that do not lend themselves to paraphrase, but it requires judgment to ascertain whether enough is enough. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:27, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Andrew has kindly removed the single direct quotation from Widdicombe, which was enclosed by quotation marks in both in the source and in my addition. Does that stop it being copy-vio? I'm not sure that extended into QUOTEFARM territory. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:34, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Andrew's edit, [7], looks to me to be a good one. I'm not seeing it as having removed material that was within quotation marks. It also changed material that was outside of the quotation marks, by revising it according to the principles that, for example, have been listed here by DIYeditor. Those changes made it no longer a close paraphrase of the source, but rather a passage rewritten in original language while keeping the intended meaning. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:43, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

The meaning that I intended, included the verbatim quote from Widdicombe. That may or may not align with the intention of The Independents reporter Lydia Spencer-Elliott or the original The i Paper article here. I guess that's a subjective judgement, not a question of copyright violation. I still don't see how a direct quote, presented within quotation marks, is a "close paraphrase". Martinevans123 (talk) 21:52, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Based on Fram's complaint, above, the source I'm considering is Spencer-Elliot. There isn't a problem with direct quotes, within quotation marks, from Widdicombe. The issue is the language by Spencer-Elliot, and how that compares with the language in your edit. She wrote: "...revealed severe burnout led to him suffering a "mental collapse" in 2022." No problem with you reproducing "mental collapse" in quotation marks. But what you wrote was "...revealed that severe burnout led to him suffering a "mental collapse", in 2022." And Andrew changed that to "In 2022, Widdicombe suffered from burnout, panic attacks and insomnia." I hope you can see the difference. What you had – outside of the quote marks – was almost identical to the source, with differences that aren't enough to prevent it from being plagiarism. Andrew's wording fixed that. The source (Spencer-Elliot) wrote: "Writing in The i Paper, Widdicombe said: [quote]... The comedian underwent multiple rounds of talking therapy and began meditating in order to [quote]..." Your edit included: "Writing in the The i Paper, Widdicombe said: [quote]... He undertook multiple rounds of talking therapy and began meditating in order to [quote]..." All you did was to change "The comedian underwent" to "He undertook". Otherwise, you just copied it. Andrew changed it to "...and so used...", following a summary of his quote about not wanting to take antidepressants, which he changed from your direct quote. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:17, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Unfortunate that 11 words have caused so much upset. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:59, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

This has become an irritation. A cessation does not seem to be forthcoming. —DIYeditor (talk) 01:16, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia even have a clear "code of ethics"? Maybe it needs one. —DIYeditor (talk) 22:33, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

WP:BLOCK and WP:BAN. I'm not convinced we need more. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:39, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

It has the Universal Code of Conduct in which the relevant section seems to be Unacceptable behaviour. This does not specifically cover plagiarism or copyright but does have something to say about harassment, hounding and threats. Driving Martin away from the project when he's a good faith editor is that sort of issue. Of course, the balance of judgement is difficult in such cases and it depends who's doing the judging. Note that there are elections currently for the UCOC Coordinating Committee. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:13, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

If you're insinuating holding Martin accountable for persistent plagiarism is possibly a violation of policy, I think I'm going to be done talking to you entirely. That sort of attack doesn't help Martin here, it aggravates the situation. You are free to take this to ANI if you think there is some kind of harassment, hounding, or threats. —DIYeditor (talk) 00:34, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

I think providing a direct illustration was the best way I could try to help. However it doesn't seem that illustration underwent any analysis by Martin, nor did the set of guidelines I gave (just off the cuff) for paraphrasing. We aren't school teachers. Wikipedia could certainly use a more formal way of instructing people on things like citing sources and paraphrasing that are only taught at a college level I guess. The thing is, if the existing guides aren't enough, I'm not sure handholding is even appropriate. It's clear from this case that it just doesn't work. I ran into it before with a User:Boeing720. No amount of handholding resolved the problems. I think he was a nice guy (well, he did go after Greta getting himself banned in the process) but the CIR was just too extreme. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:39, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

I have given no appraisal of your "direct illustration". I had assumed that I was not best placed to provide one. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:00, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

The point was for you to compare the original text, your paraphrasing, and my example paraphrasing - if you cared to try to understand what people are getting at. I was just trying to help. —DIYeditor (talk) 21:51, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I do care to understand "what people are getting at", thanks. You still think these matters should all be discussed at ANI? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:53, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

No I don't think anyone wants that. It can be a really brutal process. Some people love hauling cases to ANI - the Boeing720 situation I mentioned made me feel guilty and bad (maybe needlessly). He needed to stop what he was doing though (different than in this situation). I'm not coming here laying out "steps to paraphrase" because it's really my opinion. Of course it is my opinion, but I believe it is a factual representation of expectations in paraphrasing, such as I could come up with on the spot in response to our situation here. —DIYeditor (talk) 22:17, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

It seems to often be a matter of opinion. Tools like Earwig give scores, but those really aren't wholly objective metrics. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:22, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

The only courts we really have to decide what is plagiarism for these purposes are this here, and ANI. The biggest problem this will face for you at ANI is not the initial evidence of incidences of plagiarism and failure to acknowledge such, but the ongoing refusal to acknowledge/understand the situation that might take place at ANI itself, which could compound this from a simple "please stop doing that" to being blocked. You can burn social equity trying to pursue it and hope for the best if you want. The steps I laid out for how to transform copyrighted material are not written in stone and not copied from anywhere, but you're going to find that people with experience in the topic think something similar, and not something like the understanding (if any) you are working with. The easiest thing here is to stop doing what people are objecting to. —DIYeditor (talk) 00:46, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

All right?

You all right, Martin? Bishonen | tålk 08:55, 17 May 2026 (UTC).

+1. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:15, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

I thought I was ok. But apparently I cannot be trusted. So I'm going. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:26, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Oh FFS, that's an overreaction, Martin. You aren't someone who can't be trusted; you're just someone who effed up. People do dumb stuff all the time, and you don't need to do a diva quit over it. Just fix it, and let other people help you. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:33, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Silent tears
Drop from these eyes tonight
Tears of prayer
For all those aching hearts. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:43, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Connipitions?

Alas, I'm already gone: [8]. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:20, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

and who will cheer me up? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:50, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

Grimes2 11:59, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Aggressive, condescending language against Martin used in the thread above. There was never a more conscientious editor. I'm astonished he was so humble as to stick with it for so long. Thank you Martin. Spicemix (talk) 13:20, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

ITN recognition for Felicity Lott

On 20 May 2026, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Felicity Lott, which you updated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. Spencer^T•C 03:43, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

Many thanks, Spencer. Here she is accepting Gramophone’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:15, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

Did you see the praise on her talk? - Be proud! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:18, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

This evening Petroc Trelawny played Lott singing “Du bist die Ruh'”. Quite beautiful. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:34, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

ps: Pärt music in my story today --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:25, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Gunter Hampel - a brief 2007 article, - and so much music to explore and write about! I'll look tomorrow. An actor today. Much more in German, perhaps sources to get over. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:57, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

actor on main page. jazz multi-instrument player already somewhat improved, - reviews and other supporting material welcome - don't miss my story, a 2015 hook, and guess what: our conductor played the piece Schönberg arranged for orchestra as a postlude. You can listen ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:01, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Hampel music --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:06, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Many thanks, Gerda. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:22, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

... and today we sang in a service 2 1/2 part (of 7) from Jubilate Deo, including Ngokujabula! (With Great Rejoicing), pictured in music, - come for concerts next weekend as the poster says --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:34, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

That's a very interesting new article. I had never heard of him before. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:16, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Last-ditch proposal

Martin, I and other editors have been trying very hard to help you move along with this issue of writing without paraphrasing too closely, and it looks to me like it isn't working. It's also clear to me that the community is running out of patience, and you are very much in danger of some very serious sanctions. It will do no good for me or anyone else to pretend otherwise. At the same time, I recognize that it's unreasonable for me or anyone else to demand that you do things that, apparently, you are disinclined to do.

Nonetheless, I like you very much personally, and I note that you are one of the nicest people I've interacted with on Wikipedia. I enjoy communicating with you, and I very much want to find a way to keep you around. So I'm going to make the following proposal.

I think that you should voluntarily decide to refrain from making a certain kind of edit. This kind of edit is where you would add some text (a phrase, a sentence, or some number of sentences) to any article in mainspace, based upon some information that you have found in a source. That's a lot of potential edits, but I'm referring to that specifically. It seems to me that you run too many risks of recidivism when you make those edits, and we need to face up to that reality. So just don't tempt fate by making such edits. At all.

There would still be loads of other things that you could do. Make a correction to some error in text already written (such as when someone else's edit said something happened in 1632, but the source actually said 1635, so long as you are not creating text with words): that's still fine. Fixing spelling errors, formatting errors, links, all those kinds of gnomish edits: all of that's still fine, too. Images: no problem. Talk page discussions of all sorts: that's still fine, too. Even suggesting new text, based on a source, on an article talk page, just so long as you leave it to other editors to decide whether or not to implement it: even that would be fine. There's lots of stuff you could do, and be a clear net positive. There are many Wikipedia editors who specialize in all kinds of work other than writing text, and they are able to contribute happily.

I recognize that if I were, hypothetically, to propose this during an ANI thread, I would be laughed off of the page, because the argument would be that if we have to restrict someone like that, they simply should not be here. So that's not what I'm doing. I'm putting this here on your talk, and hoping that you will agree to it voluntarily and informally, but stick to it attentively. In that way, I hope that we can keep you around, without having this escalate to a drama board. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:42, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

That would be a fine solution to me: add no passages based on source material. Edits based on facts from source material are fine but even a whole sentence is apparently too much. Martin should in no way do the faux-paraphrasing or make any attempt to paraphrase until he is able to demonstrate on a new passage without any help a complete and thorough paraphrasing and promise to do the steps involved in that in all future cases. As has been mentioned, most editors and most edits are not attempting to add passages from source, so there are a ton of possible edits other than doing that. That is a very important role on Wikipedia, and one we need to be able to trust the people doing it on. It's certainly something I take seriously when I do, even if it's just a few bits from a news story. One needs to at least pay mind to the basics of paraphrasing...

Again, judging from the greetings and messages of support on this page, Martin has a lot of social equity here and that is valuable as well. There's no need to press this further if the faux-paraphrasing can stop. —DIYeditor (talk) 20:33, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

To put it more briefly, "a change is as good as a rest". Me, I was topic-banned from deletion matters. It was a stitch-up but I shrugged it off and have been doing other things instead as Wikipedia is a bottomless pit. Today, for example, I used AWB for the first time. I have known about it for a long time but never found the time or occasion to get to grips with it. It was an interesting puzzle to master the interface but I got it to work well enough and now I have a new string to my bow. "When one door closes, another opens". Andrew🐉(talk) 20:41, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

As the instigators of these latest "discussions", PMC and Fram may also have a view on this proposal. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:04, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Commenting only since you pinged me. Trypto has already described what would be my objection to this proposal: "if we have to restrict someone like that, they simply should not be here". Unfortunately, I think this is an accurate assessment. But let me be clear. I don't dislike you, Martin, and I don't want to see you leave the site. My win condition here is you writing in your own words, not you getting punished. But in my opinion, the entire discussion above makes it clear that you do not or cannot (it doesn't matter which) understand how to do so. It doesn't seem to matter how much time other editors spend explaining it to you. If you can't do that, it's difficult to see what alternate solution exists aside from heavy restrictions. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:58, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Thank you PMC, for clarifying your views. I'd like to apologise for asking for your further comment here, even after you said above that you were "done". In retrospect, opening a discussion thread at Talk:St Mary's Church, Hadleigh, to ask about the use of Tricker (2011), would have been somewhat more appropriate than pasting back the material sourced to the NHL website. This was a mistake, not a question of my misunderstanding the importance of copyright and how I can avoid copy-vio. I understood in 2022, and I think I do still understand now. My problem lies in trying to faithfully retain the meaning of the original source using different words. With regard to Widdicombe, does Spencer-Elliot in The Independent avoid copy-vio of Nick McGrath in The i Paper article here? I suppose journalists are held to different standards than are Wikipedia editors. I see that Fram has not edited for a few days, so I may have to wait a little longer for any comment here, if he wants to make one.

If everyone agrees to the voluntary restriction proposed by Trypto, it would be very churlish of me not to try it. I would be perfectly happy to suggest major textual additions on the appropriate Talk page first. I'd estimate that 95% of my edits do not involve adding major textual additions. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:03, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

No apology required; I've been staying out because I didn't want to appear as though I was badgering you. I think Spencer-Elliot does a pretty reasonable job of summarizing McGrath's transcript of the interview. She quotes a hell of a lot more than we would, but that's journalism. But notice how she summarizes some bits in her own words: I was just so panicked about constantly working and that if I ever stopped working, everything would go away. becomes Widdicombe explained his anxiety stemmed from a fear that if he ever stopped working then all his success as a comedian would vanish.

Let me give you another example from one of my own articles. the designer says he watched a lot of news and was inundated with the unfolding subprime mortgage crisis and its worldwide aftermath. Mostly he became bored of "this money situation" and decided to "do something crazy. You know that everyone’s sales are going to be down 20 percent anyway. You may as well make a statement." becomes McQueen felt sales would be poor regardless as a result of the declining economy, so he intended to attract attention by rejecting the safe approach and making a statement. See how I've condensed and restated the original? I've lost some of the detail about how he was watching the news, but that doesn't matter; the overall point is conveyed. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 11:11, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks very much for that example, which is very helpful. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:15, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

I left the copyvio I detected in the article for ease of discussion here, and to make it easier to replace if someone wanted to. I don't get why you need a word-by-word explanation of what consists copyvio in it, or your defense of (paraphrased) "I used the same quotes", as it was (as explained to you) the bits outside the quotes that are the issue. I don't agree with the proposals made above, copyvio in other namespaces than article space is still not acceptable, so moving things outside mainspace is not really a solution. And as you have an extremely hard time understanding even the basic issues about copyvio apparently, I don't think this is a worthwhile endeavour. Fram (talk) 14:09, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Do you intend to rev-del it? And your copy here, of course. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:52, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't have revdel abilities. And posing copyvio's for the sake of discussing copyvio's has usually been allowed (as long as it doesn'y get excessive) as it is otherwise impossible to reasonably discuss this. Just imagine that I came here to say "your text there was copyvio, but it has been revdelled and I can't repeat it here, so you have to take my word for it". Wouldn't have been helpful. Feel free to request revdel of course. Fram (talk) 16:24, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I have been in that situation more than once. And it was very unhelpful. So I am not too bothered about what happens in the article history or here. It has now been changed anyway. Notwithstanding my "extremely hard time", it's my understanding that the copvio lies in the 40 words that were not enclosed by quotation marks, and which included the links to burnout, The i Paper and talking therapy. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:48, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

As the instigators of these latest "discussions" this kind of phrasing is just begging for this to go straight to ANI. Instigators? Scare quotes around "discussions"? You are completely in the wrong and people have been very patient with you. —DIYeditor (talk) 00:37, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Not to argue with someone who agrees with me on the substance, but if I'd wanted to make an issue of the phrasing, I would have done so. There's no need to do it on my behalf. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:13, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

I was speaking on my own behalf that it was aggravating me. —DIYeditor (talk) 18:47, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

I appreciate PMC for her understanding, thanks. At this point, it seems to me that Martin has agreed not to be churlish (something I've actually never known him to be!), and perhaps it's time for the rest of us to accept that for now, and see how this works out. As should be obvious, I made this proposal precisely to avoid having this escalate any further. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:01, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Not sure I even need to say this much but I am washing my hands of it and removing subscriptions for these discussions. —DIYeditor (talk) 23:52, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Referees

The proposal that Martin not add any text to articles seems too tight and likely to generate boundary arguments about simple facts. I suggest that Martin have a list of team-mates/mentors/co-pilots/sub-editors that they can refer to when they feel the need to get something done. If he wants to work on a particular article of interest such as St Mary's Church, Hadleigh, he can "phone a friend" who agrees to keep an eye on what's done to the article and otherwise help out as appropriate. I'm happy to be considered for articles like that and have already started reviewing and updating it as it's the sort of respectable English topic that I like. But there are other topics that I wouldn't care for -- football, for example -- and so there should be a panel of potential referees.

Collaboration on an article might make the work more interesting and there would tend to be some skills-transfer as we tend to have different approaches and toolkits for such work. Working closely on a topic may give us more insight about how we handle issues like attribution, paraphrase and quotation. And the articles are likely to benefit from having multiple editors looking at them.

Andrew🐉(talk) 15:57, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Sounds good to me personally. Just pull some more people into the loop. Martin certainly seems like he is on top of things for the most part - knowledgable, able to draw on the right sources. I do feel like some acknowledgement on his part that he does "have a problem" as it were with paraphrasing would help here. —DIYeditor (talk) 19:07, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

I wonder would you possibly be prepared to avoid using the third person singular case on his own Talk page? He’s beginning to think he’s not really here. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:15, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Andrew, for the second time, I'm going to say that, as much as I appreciate you trying to lessen the blow for Martin, you aren't doing him any favors here. If there is a risk of trouble over boundaries, I think Martin should err on the side of not getting too close to boundaries. I'm always happy to offer advice if asked, and I've been trying to do a lot of advice-giving at the St Mary's page. Martin, any time you have a question, please feel free to ask me. (Sorry that I used some 3rd person there.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:57, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Let's consider a fresh example: the case of Roy Tricker discussed below. He seems to be a suitable subject for an article but this would have to be done carefully as his notability seems marginal. If Martin wanted to take the lead on this I would suggest that they create a draft article in a sandbox and then ask another editor or two to review it. If I were asked then I would give a review using the {{DYK checklist}}. This is a familiar process for me and might also help in preparing it for an actual DYK nomination.

When I do such a DYK review, I usually run WP:EARWIG and this usually reports something to check out. If there seems to be too close a paraphrase, I push back and the editor usually copy-edits the article to address this. If Martin had some trouble doing so then I'd get involved in the detail and this close co-operation might help us both understand the issue better.

The article would only be put into mainspace when it seemed ready. If the draft versions were too raw then the final version might be used to create a fresh and pristine page using cut/paste.

So, my point is that such work might be done in a safe way while still enabling Martin to get useful content created.

Andrew🐉(talk) 07:33, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

You raise the issue of creating drafts, as opposed to making edits directly in mainspace. It's something that I hadn't thought of, specifically, because the problem has been direct edits in mainspace. To the best of my recollection, creation of new pages hasn't been an issue, so I don't know how much of an issue it will be, going forward. I've already said that I think it's fine to make suggestions about content on article talk pages, so long as other editors end up deciding whether or not to implement those edits in mainspace. I'd see drafts as being the same thing. I think what's most important in this regard is to not get too close to boundaries, and that's something I trust Martin about.

When I made this proposal, I obviously did it here on this talk page, and that was intentional. Everything we are discussing here is an informal and voluntary agreement, that does not have the enforcement power of a community sanction enacted after broader discussion at AN or ANI. That's a feature, not a bug. Some editors need the specter of enforcement hanging over them, in order to make restrictions effective. Martin isn't like that. There's this serious issue of plagiarism and copyvio, but I don't think anyone sensible believes that Martin acts in bad faith to try and mislead other editors (and I would push back very strongly against any accusation to the contrary). So it's important here that Martin understands what is expected, going forward, and I'm confident that he does. But if he makes some borderline mistakes, what we are discussing here is not going to be enforceable, in the sense of blocks etc. (There still could be admin sanctions for violating policies such as copyvio, of course. That doesn't change.) If there's a borderline mistake that doesn't cross the line into policy violation, the solution will be discussion, not escalation, and I made it that way by design. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:05, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

But I fear that the proposal gives or gave the impression of some kind of "immunity" when suggesting things on talk pages, draft, ... while in reality the exact same copyvio rules apply, and making further problematic edits there will not be seen as unproblematic but will just lead to a block / ban anyway. The issue is not the location, it's that after all these years and blocks and discussions, they still don't get it and try to wikilaywer about what is acceptable or not, and try to minimize the issues. See their reply above[9], "it's my understanding that the copvio lies in the 40 words that were not enclosed by quotation marks, and which included the links to burnout, The i Paper and talking therapy." No, it's the same words, in the same order, with the same quotes. The links are a red herring, the copyvio isn't changed by including or excluding links. And there is no magic muinimum or maximum number of words, a 10 word copy may be copyvio, while having 50 distinct, separate words matching in an edit of 1000 words summarizing a source of 50 pages is not a copyvio. Note that my quote or MartinEvans' edit in that comparison was the full edit they made, not some cherrypicked fragment. I don't get how after all these years it still needs to be explained what the issue is with that edit (made during a discussion about his copyvio issues, so not as if they forgot that these rules existed somehow), and even then it doesn't seem to really register. Fram (talk) 17:28, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

The reply I gave above was 100% factual, not an attempt at "wikilayering". I was seeking clarification about the use of direct quotation. By my count, 39 words were not enclosed in quote marks. If one is trying to reflect a chronological sequence of events, it's hardly surprising that some words, or even sentences, will be in the same order. I'm a little surprised that you see no difference between 1000 words of copyvio and 10 words. I didn't know 10 was a lower limit. Is it? I've assumed it's more than a single word. No, I hadn't forgotten that these rules existed. If " burnout", The i Paper and talking therapy" are coyvio, what words would you use to replace them? The Spencer-Elliot article (itself largely composed of direct quotes from Widdicombe) has 560 words; so my 40 words equated to about 7%. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:42, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

As you don't seem to have really read or understood my post at all, I don't think it is useful to continue with this. I'll let others deal with it, and if I see more copyvio's I'll probably post it at ANI. Fram (talk) 18:00, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

I have read your post. I believe I have understood it. If you have read my questions, it might be polite to reply. In your opening post above you mentioned "multiple copyvio blocks". As can been seen from my block log, in the 19 years I have been editing, I have received four. Of the two of those imposed by yourself, one was for posting YouTube links, which is not really the same thing as copying text, is it? Of the second one, it was said: "Unblocking; while there are some close paraphrasing/direct translation problems, a 1 month block with no prior discussion was not productive". Martinevans123 (talk) 18:04, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm not claiming perfection here, and there's a good reason why I acknowledged from the start that my proposal would get laughed off the page if I said it at ANI. I'm not naive about this. I have already said that I agree with your analysis of the content, and I've already said that I've come to the conclusion that Martin must stay away from this because I don't expect that he's going to get better at this kind of content writing. The world is imperfect (that's putting it mildly), and this is the least bad of several bad solutions. Edits in mainspace affect our readers, but edits on talk pages don't. Policies still apply to talk pages, and I understand that, too. Each of us has to decide: is it more important to demand retribution, or to try to get back to everyone working on improving the encyclopedia in whatever way each person can best contribute? --Tryptofish (talk) 17:48, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

"Demand retribution"? No, what is important dealing with this editor like we do with every other otherwise productive editor who is also a serial copyright violator, to prevent further instances. If there was any indication that the issues would't reoccur, no discussion or sanctions would be needed. But both the long history here, and the discussions on this talk page, give me (and apparently some others) any confidence that this will be the case. We'll see... Fram (talk) 18:03, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

As I said, I'm not naive, and I'm not naive about how things work on Wikipedia. So long as you elect not to be retributive for retribution's sake, that's fine, and yes, we'll see. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:21, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

I assume you meant to write “don’t give me” and not “give me”? Do you now believe I’ve read your posts? Martinevans123 (talk) 18:27, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Above you said: "And posing (did you mean "posting"?) copyvio's for the sake of discussing copyvio's has usually been allowed (as long as it doesn't get excessive) as it is otherwise impossible to reasonably discuss this." But then you've said: "But I fear that the proposal gives or gave the impression of some kind of "immunity" when suggesting things on talk pages, draft, ... while in reality the exact same copyvio rules apply, and making further problematic edits there will not be seen as unproblematic but will just lead to a block / ban anyway." How do you reconcile these two statements? Surely, existing rules allow for any editor to make requests for edits on article Talk pages. If a request is judged to be copy-vio, it may be deleted with an appropriate explanation and rev-del'ed if warranted? Martinevans123 (talk) 19:10, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Roy Tricker

Just as some background, here's a 2019 Suffolk Magazine article about prolific local author Roy Tricker. It seems Roy passed away in February this year? Martinevans123 (talk) 09:12, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

The author looks to be notable so we should create an article for him. I'm not convinced that the death notice is the same person; the name of their wife is different, for example. And there are photos out there which look different. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:11, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Oh that’s a relief. Yes, he does seem notable. Looks like he's Roy W. as here, born in Epping in 1947. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:25, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

On second thoughts, I think his notability is at best marginal. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:43, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Leave him to me. Obituaries will help as and when he does pass on. For example, I've just got Peter Thoday started. He didn't seem sufficiently notable when I created The Victorian Kitchen Garden back in 2008 – I remember considering the issue. But that show and its sequels made him more famous and so I've just got back to him after about 18 years. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:39, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry

Hi Martinevans123. Please take a moment to review the policy on the use of multiple accounts. Specifically:

• It appears you are editing occasionally using another account. This appears in good-faith, but I did not see any links between that account and this account
• It seems you have been editing while logged out on multiple occasions, which appears to not be the occasional accidental logged out edit

Please avoid editing while logged out and I would recommend disclosing the connection to your other account to avoid impressions that this is bad-faith use of multiple accounts. Thanks and happy editing, Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 19:01, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for telling me. Yes, I have edited while not logged in. Occasionally there may be more than one editor editing from this same IP address. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:05, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Martin, I think if I see another thread on your talk page about something related to policy, I'm going to have a heart attack. Please post the account information about any recent logged-out edits on your user page, indicating the temporary-account account numbers. Please see Category:Alternative Wikipedia account templates. It's important to disclose this information to avoid, um, anything bad. If you need to find those other account numbers, you can locate them by going through the edit histories of the pages where it happened. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:04, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

This new temporary account number system is all new to me and I'm not sure I understand it. This all seems to have happened in the six months where I wasn't editing. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:07, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Understandable, and if it was only during the period when you weren't editing logged-in, and isn't happening now that you have "returned", then you are in good shape in terms of not being in danger of trouble. You probably remember the articles you edited during that time, or at least most of them. Look at their article histories. There will be edits by "accounts" with labels like ~2026 followed by more numbers. I checked my own watchlist for some examples, and if you look here, you'll see examples at or near the top. (In this example the account name one could copy would have been ~2026-30675-74. Note that this doesn't reveal anything personal about the user, so your own personal privacy isn't going to be affected. Also note that, although that example is on my watchlist, those are edits that I haven't checked, so I don't know if they are any good. sigh) Does that help? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:33, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I really can’t remember. I’ll certainly make sure I’m logged on when making any future edits. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:40, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

That's OK, no need to be overly worried about it – I'm just being protective to a fault. I just made this edit: [10]. It pretty much covers any logged out edits you made before your "return". Of course, you are free to revert it if you don't like it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:47, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Sonny

RIP Walter Theodore Rollins (September 7, 1930 – May 25, 2026): Waiting on a friend. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:20, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

And Rollins with Miles Davis, who turns 100 today: Miles Davis feat. Sonny Rollins - Dig (Official Audio) on YouTube Grimes2 13:51, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Superb, thanks! Martinevans123 (talk) 14:18, 26 May 2026 (UTC) (album is here)

I'm no music expert, but Rollins was one of the greats. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:13, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, and a great survivor: "Rollins was the last survivor of the 57 jazz musicians depicted in the 1958 photograph A Great Day in Harlem." Martinevans123 (talk) 16:14, 26 May 2026 (UTC) .... another favourite: "On A Slow Boat To China", such a sweet tone, faultless

Wonderful albums and solos, and there are so many from that period, but another thing I always loved was his humorous approach, e.g. on "Sonnymoon For Two" (A Night at the "Village Vanguard") or "I'm an Old Cowhand" (Way Out West 🙂). Only last week, coincidentally, I had read an old interview with him, and marveled at the fact that he was still among us 🥲. ---Sluzzelin talk 17:44, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

An amazing age to achieve, even without being a musical genius. And some surprising appearances! Lisasimpson123 (talk) 17:58, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

👍 You, of course, are one my favourite sax players too! ---Sluzzelin talk 18:17, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

And btw, as another Tenor giant would be celebrating his 100th birthday later this year, always worth listening to (and as an altoist worth resisting): Tenor Madness! ---Sluzzelin talk

Yes, know what you mean: [11] Martinevans123 (talk) 09:07, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

ITN recognition for Sonny Rollins

Rollins at Stockholm Jazz Fest 2009

On 27 May 2026, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Sonny Rollins, which you updated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. Stephen 03:55, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Many thanks, Stephen. Very glad that he has a blub and is pictured on main page. Wikipedia is a bit like a drug isn't it... Martinevans123 (talk) 08:53, 27 May 2026 (UTC) (shame this Main page image no longer appears in the article!)

Hey Martin, I didn't know that he had gotten a blub. Was that what killed him? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:24, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Hmmm, maybe it was. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:03, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me, bub. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:15, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

The rescued footage of his 1974 gig at Ronnie Scott’s by BBC Four a real treat tonight, including the close ups of Rufus Harley’s argyle socks. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:00, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Brian Matthew

Hi, Martinevans123. Just to let you know, in case you didn't see my edit summaries - the reason I removed the name of the son was in line with WP:BLPNAME. Non-notable family members should not usually be listed. Best wishes, Tacyarg (talk) 13:52, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I did see your edit summary, thanks. But that advice says (emphasis added): "The names of any immediate, former, or significant family members or any significant relationship of the subject of a BLP may be part of an article, if reliably sourced, subject to editorial discretion that such information is relevant to a reader's complete understanding of the subject." So I think there is some leeway, especially as Christopher is not a minor - he was aged 60 when that source was published in 2014. Could be discussed further at Talk:Brian Matthew, but I have no strong view. Regards. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:02, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. Yes, I agree there is leeway, but I don't think his name is relevant in the way the guidance says - am I missing something? Thanks, Tacyarg (talk) 14:09, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Monty Don

Hi, Rather than ping-pong edits, I am happy for either the source to be removed (the claim was unsourced prior to me adding edits) or for the sentence to be removed entirely as it doesn’t add much (if anything) to the overall article BillyDee (talk) 14:51, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Hi Billy. No worries, whatevs... I am a keen Don watcher. Here are all 14 episodes from this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show^{"An event supported by Range Rover"} We can't make a complete list, of course, as that would beWP:OR. But here he is in his Bus Conductor's Best (amongst other horti-cool outfits)!! Martinevans123 (talk) 15:00, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Hi again Billy. Looks like there has been some controversy over the wearing of a Barbour jacket on GW! See e.g.here, here and here. Good job it wasn't at Chelsea! Martinevans123 (talk) 19:48, 30 May 2026 (UTC)