Site user etoisle (account age 35 days, site member 34 days) edited the page SCP-Owo part the second (created by S.D. Locke), which had a large amount of content on it, to simply read "the wiki was a mistake". Screenshots can be found here. The edits were then reverted afterwards, and the page has since been summarily deleted for reaching the threshold of -20. Disc team, please provide input.
Blatant vandalism, standard procedure follows.
EDIT: Noting etoisle had a previous account and has been a part of the community for years enough to know better.
Alright, providing context after some lengthy discussions with Shaggy (S.D. Locke).
Shaggy believes that the edit made was accidental and unable to be rectified due to competing edit locks, and besides this, was in the spirit intended of the article and was part of a larger meming that was happening at the time and was not malicious. As the original author, he does not hold issue with the temporary content-replacement.
Direct quotes from Shaggy:
also also, I think there were several edits where others' content was edited, replaced, or removed — with the encouragement of everyone involved. Not a single person suffered from having their content edited, as they were all one-upping each other/egging others on. you'd need to look at an edit-by-edit view of the page to see precicely every single edit that would constitute "vandalism".
tldr: everyone was allowing everyone else to fuck with whatever was put up
tldr tldr: Nothing that was changed on the page would constitute vandalism, because nothing was actual deliberate, malicious destruction. I permitted folks to go wild, and they did.
Going to post my own opinion as a reply so as to not confuse anyone.
Given the nature of the situation, especially as described by the original author of the article, I am personally of the opinion that we should not take any disciplinary action here outside of a warning to all involved parties to not actively shitpost like this on the wiki. It clogs the forums, recent posts, recent edits, et cetera, and, as very well shown here, can lead to easy misunderstandings that can and might result in disciplinary action.
Seconding. This seems like a messy situation all around so a general anti-shitpost warning seems more appropriate than singular disc action.
Third, but this kind of thing, especially from members who should know better, runs my patience thin.
If we had set up a community graffiti wall and I covered up everyone else's graffiti with a washable paint and put "graffiti bad lol" up there, that would still be vandalism even if and the funder had said "shitpost on this wall to your heart's content!" and even though it's easily restored.
User etoisle has been banned for art theft.
It was recently brought up by a user that images on this user’s art page were traced from other sources, unattributed by the artist. The stock photos these images were found to have been traced from are not CC-compliant and therefore derivative works are not permitted on this wiki, in addition to the plagiarism aspect of this case.
Both captain and vice-captain of our Images team, through Licensing, feel this is worthy of a permanent ban. As head of Disciplinary I agree. This ban will be permanent, with the opportunity to appeal once after the ban is enacted and again after one year has passed, on September 5 2021.
This decision was made by several members of staff, including myself and members of Licensing, Disciplinary, and other members of moderation/administration.
The offending images will be removed from the wiki, remaining below for posterity. Other works by the author will not be removed unless found to have been plagiarized in the future, or unless the author asks them to be removed.
The images in question:
Screengrab of photos in question on etoisle’s art page.
And links to the originals:
linkback to dog, scroll down, right hand side
User etoisle is welcome to appeal this ban in Site17 chat.
Heard Appeal in 17
etoisle> i struggle a lot with drawing animals, so i referenced heavily from stock images; i tend to overlay the image to help me block out the anatomy, then refer back to it as i work and add detail. i absolutely understand how this can be seen as tracing—in this instance i definitely relied way too heavily on the reference, and i never meant to attempt to hide or pass anything off, and i'm really sorry if it appeared like that.
12:06 AM i thought that since it was translating a photo into a drawing, it was a derivative work—in this case, i understand the licensing issue inherent in this, and i have absolutely no problem with the art being removed. i didn't know i had to make sure references were also cc, so I'm really sorry about that. in the future, i'll make sure all my references are cc and i'll cite them clearly; i wasn't aware this was something that
12:06 AM was necessary and i haven't seen any policy on it, but i'll adhere to it in the future to avoid any more problems along these lines. again, i'm really sorry for the misunderstanding that caused all this.
12:06 AM that's my appeal, i'm happy to answer any questions you have
12:10 AM <•Dexanote> Okay.
12:11 AM So I'm discussing with other people, I was not made aware before showing up that other people were here to take the appeal.
12:11 AM Modern_Erasmus will be actually picking this up, I apologize, he is here.
12:11 AM
<•Modern_Erasmus> etoisle: Hey, so I'll be hearing your appeal since Dex was the one who enacted and usually that's something we don't want to do
12:11 AM thanks dex!
12:11 AM <etoisle> alright, thanks
12:12 AM → •Gee0765 (opped) joined ⇐ basircuser quit
12:13 AM
<•Modern_Erasmus> etoisle: Okay, so a few questions: first, have any other art pieces you've posted included traced elements or referencing of a similar level as the dog pic?
12:13 AM → Radguel joined (moc.duolccri.llewkcorb.85441D92-CRInys|194544diu#moc.duolccri.llewkcorb.85441D92-CRInys|194544diu)
12:15 AM
<•Modern_Erasmus> (for clarification's sake referencing in general is fine, even if the source isn't cc, but when something is traced or the reference crosses a line in how much is borrowed that can change. e.g. the dog pic has the same pose, coloring, breed, jacket, everything)
12:16 AM <etoisle> yes; off the top of my head, the 191 and 5902 art also reference stock photos
12:16 AM the pose is slightly different as well as the coloring but for sure it went too far w/ that one in particular
12:17 AM ⇐ lleapinllamas quit (~PI.D30C08DF.AB19C176.CE88602E|criigc#PI.D30C08DF.AB19C176.CE88602E|criigc) Quit: CGI:IRC (Ping timeout)
12:17 AM
<•Modern_Erasmus> Alright, thanks
12:17 AM Do you know what website(s) the source photos for those two were from?
12:17 AM <etoisle> i don't recall no, sorry
12:18 AM
<•Modern_Erasmus> Gotcha
12:18 AM <etoisle> i doubt either were cc though
12:21 AM → basircuser joined (~PI.A0C1B4AC.8A418567.415EE263|esucrisab#PI.A0C1B4AC.8A418567.415EE263|esucrisab)
12:21 AM <etoisle> like i said i have no issue w/taking it down if it's a licensing concern, i just want to be clear that at no point was i trying to be deceptive or pass work off as my own—i assumed that photo ref was alright, but i definitely went overboard especially with those two
12:21 AM
<•Modern_Erasmus> etoisle: Alright, given the info here I'm going to reduce the ban to one month with a stipulation that should you trace something without citation in the future it will be a perma.
12:22 AM <etoisle> thank you so much
12:22 AM
<•Modern_Erasmus> etoisle: This whole thing probably feels pretty harsh, but a lot of this was specifically the sources used: one of the stock images is licensed at $80 per usage and if wikidot (or us if we were on a PF site) were sued based on that on a per view basis it would be the end of the website. Those companies are absolute vultures.
12:22 AM <etoisle> sorry again
12:23 AM yeah it was my mistake in assuming u__u
12:24 AM ⇐ •Teratophobia quit (~moc.murtceps.ser.586D3199-CRInys|vurgnkiuQ#moc.murtceps.ser.586D3199-CRInys|vurgnkiuQ) Quit: Leaving
12:24 AM
<•Modern_Erasmus> etoisle: In order to ensure standards are more clear on this subject, we're also going to add an addendum to the rules around this specifically banning un-cited tracings so that in the future no one will be surprised by this sort of thing.
12:24 AM <etoisle> but i appreciate you hearing me out
12:24 AM nods
12:24 AM
<•Modern_Erasmus> np
Ban reduced to one month with the stipulation that if they are caught tracing something without citation in the future it will be a perma. While I stand by the premise that uncited tracing is art plagiarism (And google seems to agree), it is true that opinions on what degree of tracing and close referencing becomes it vary and that our own rules and policies do not have explicit language about this area. In the near future, we'll be adding language to the rules specifically banning un-cited tracing, tracing of all rights reserve copyrighted stock photos, and other similar actions.