Wikipedia's Content Ripped Off More Egregiously Than Usual

Ultraexactzz writes "Wikipedia's content is licensed under the GFDL, which permits such content to be copied with attribution — and Wikipedia is used to its content being copied and mirrored. However, a new website at e-wikipedia.net appears to have taken this a step further by mirroring the entire English Wikipedia — articles, logos, disclaimers, userpages, and all. Compare Wikipedia's About page with e-wikipedia.net's. The site even adds to Wikipedia's normally ad-free interface by including text ads." Just try logging in or actually editing an article, though, and you'll get the message "The requested URL /w/index.php was not found on this server. Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request." If there's credit here, I don't see it — sure looks like it's intentionally misleading readers.

Comments

This is perfect!

[Darkness404]

This is perfect! Next time a teacher or other person in authority says I can't use Wikipedia because it is unreliable I just get the content from this site and I can say that it wasn't Wikipedia!

Re:This is perfect!

[compro01]

1. Cite to a specific version of an article.

2. Or cite to the items the wikipedia article cites. I find wikipedia to be a nice "springboard", as I can go to the references, and then to the reference's references, and so on. Quick way to get useful and cite-able info.

Re:This is perfect!

[geekoid]

The science articles in wikipedia are better the any other source. Several tests of this have been made.

In theory, it won't work, in practice it does.

There is nothing wrong with Wikipedia that can't happen in any hard bound book.

Most things are garbage for profession citation...hell most profession citations are garbage.

Re:This is perfect!

[tlhIngan]

This is perfect! Next time a teacher or other person in authority says I can't use Wikipedia because it is unreliable I just get the content from this site and I can say that it wasn't Wikipedia!

Crap like this is exactly WHY Wikipedia should not be cited formally as a reference. Even if Wikipedia could be trusted to be 100% correct (which it can't), how do you know you're not looking at some fake shit? Wikipedia is great for personal research. For formal citation, it's garbage. For one thing, the content can change. This is part of what makes it powerful, but it also makes it useless when cited on paper. You go to the URL and see something totally different from what the author was trying to cite.

Actually, no encyclopedia (Wikipedia or otherwise) should be cited formally. It doesn't matter on how accurate it is, or who can edit it, or anything. An encyclopedia is not a primary source. It's a good starting point to find primary sources (and for those of us who aren't using it formally, a source of information) and general background information to pursue one's research, but that's it. This is most evident in Wikipedia's "No original research" stance - it knows it's not a primary source of information and it shouldn't be.

The fact that Wikipedia is freely editable means one should really go to the original source for information.

Re:This is perfect!

[DaveV1.0]

1) Fail. Because the if the specific version of the article is false or misleading, you will have used invalid data.

2) Which is exactly how you should use wikipedia.

Re:This is perfect!

[JonathanBoyd]

The science articles in wikipedia are better the any other source. Several tests of this have been made.

You need to check those tests carefully. On average, science articles in Wikipedia may be more accurate than those of similar encyclopedias e.g. Brittanica, but they're not better than dedicated scientific texts and journals.

Re:This is perfect!

[bluefoxlucid]

Wikipedia is constantly peer reviewed, by everyone.

In MAJOR articles like those on neuroscience, biology, core computer science, mathematics, etc, Wikipedia tends to contain fewer inaccuracies per text unit than Britannica. Britannica is researched by a single person or closed group, leading to a lack of distributed peer review by experts in any field other than scholarly pursuit.

In other words, well-written Wikipedia articles have fewer probable (statistics) factual inaccuracies than your typical formal encyclopedia article. Small, uninteresting, or poorly written Wikipedia articles probably have errors, and are of a quality that wouldn't make it into a formal encyclopedia.

Re:This is perfect!

[bane2571]

While you are right and scientific journals/textbooks are usually the most accurate source I would argue that wikipedia is definitely peer reviewed and sometimes even more accurate than (some) textbooks.

A challenge for you: make a change to wikipedia that is blatantly wrong and have it stay for 24 hours. The point being that if you could achieve that for wikipedia then you'd likely be able to get the error into a textbook. The difference is that once it's in a textbook it's wrong until the next edition, wikipedia is wrong until someone notices.

Re:This is perfect!

[Arterion]

Wikipedia has gone beyond a traditional encyclopedia, though. Both in how many topics it covers, and that detail of information on each topic. For some articles, the information listed it more detailed than some textbooks I've seen, but of course YMMV. I'm not saying it should be a primary source, but not for the reason of "it's an encyclopedia!"

Re:This is perfect!

[nine-times]

Aren't you facing the exact same risk whenever you cite any other source, too?

Yes, anything can be misleading or inaccurate. That's not why citation matters. The purpose of citation is so that the reader can refer to the source to see (a) whether the source supports the interpretation you offer; and (b) how the source supports itself.

The second reason (b) is why you should always cite primary sources. The point isn't that primary sources are infallible, but that if they're truly primary sources, they'll support themselves. They'll give examples, evidence, etc. as to why the claims they're making are true, and the reader is then able to evaluate the claims on the basis of the person who originated those claims.

If you cite a secondary source, then you're leading the reader on a trail of citations that might go nowhere. I could cite you, you could cite someone else, that someone else cite yet another person, and off we go. You're essentially setting up a research project for the reader to figure out where the information actually came from.

Also, by the time the information comes through so many people, it can be distorted. It can be like a game of telephone, where what started out as a fact gets interpreted, and the interpretation gets interpreted, and that interpretation gets interpreted, ad nauseam. So by the end, you have no idea how distorted the truth is.

So seriously, if your research paper is relying on certain facts, try to find the original piece of writing that asserted those facts, and read that work for yourself. If you can't do that (in the case of a lost work that no longer exists, but is cited elsewhere), find the source that is as close as possible to the original, and cite that. Always go to the most original point, and always cite the primary work.

Wikipedia is a perfectly good place to start, and luckily they've started to encourage people to cite sources so that you can find the primary source for yourself. So when you want to use a fact from Wikipedia, follow their citation, read the work for yourself, and then you can cite *that* work as your primary source.

Re:This is perfect!

[exley]

The science articles in wikipedia are better the any other source. Several tests of this have been made. Citation Needed

Re:This is perfect!

[bluefoxlucid]

No, in the real world, high level grad students doing research and study read Wikipedia for information, and notice that some of it's wrong. They then feel the urge to correct it in some cases, possibly after verification from their textbook. I've done this.

It's of course a biosphere, just like the economy and government. It naturally converges on an optimal condition, that being that it contains correct information. Britannica can't (it's micro-managed and thus sub-optimal), and scientific review articles are forcibly peer reviewed once (it's micro-managed and thus sub-optimal, but with a much better starting point). The interesting thing about the latter two is that over time they will "become" wrong, i.e. as new scientific discoveries disprove their content; the former, however, will stay "wrong" for a shorter time period.

None of these are perfect. Wikipedia is possibly better than Britannica, worse initially than a peer-reviewed scientific paper (though the data gets incorporated into Wikipedia quickly, with reference), and far better than the Google results many students use on their research assignments (hosted on free Web sites, etc)... though some of those aren't bad either, see http://www.freewebs.com/valvewizard/ (I've even seen Usenet discussions used in FORMAL compsci papers, usually quoting Gutmann).

Re:This is perfect!

[optikSmoke]

It naturally converges on an optimal condition, that being that it contains correct information

[citation needed]

Re:This is perfect!

[atraintocry]

I think you're on the right track, but I'll try to elaborate a little based on what I know.

First of all, RGB is device-dependent. Monitors have phosphors that are imperfect, much like the inks are. We use ICC profiles (gamma curves) to tie them back to a standard RGB. Apple uses Apple RGB, Microsoft uses sRGB. On top of this, there are hardware adjustments that the manufacturer makes, as well as the consumer, in both hardware and software. So, to (over)simplify, there is no "RGB"...there's things like sRGB, which attempt to cover as much of the visible spectrum as possible, but do not cover all of it, nor cover any of it "evenly".

CMYK is much the same. It's true that black is necessary because existing C, M, & Y pigments are not "saturated" enough and do not mix to make pure black. Same story: physical limitations, compounded by differences between paper, finishes, where you buy ink from, what chemicals are in it, what sort of press, and on and on. For instance, deep blacks on paper require a glossy finish, same as with monitors. Many device-independent color spaces for CMYK exist as well, one of which is SWOP. It has its own set of assumptions and compromises to go with it. Printers can try to calibrate to this if they want.

Side note: let's say I don't care about any of this, because I'm using mspaint, I'm picking colors by RGB value, and not attaching color profiles to my work. Well, it won't look the same on a Mac...it certainly won't look the same on a printer. Why should I care about the data in the file? About the purity of the theory? At the end of the day, I got three different results for one file, which is unacceptable.

But the main challenges here are that CMYK has a smaller gamut, and there is not in fact one definitive CMYK gamut. Maybe the color space I chose to convert to nailed the blues, but screwed up the reds. Or orange got washed out but not green, and everything that's greyscale is now sort of sepia. We're converting color information between differently weighted, differently compromised systems, then displaying the results on machines that have to be calibrated to match those systems. And we all have different eyes. Someone's gotta decide exactly what blue looks like. Which is why Pantone is used so widely in print. You can avoid all the conversion crap, just tell your printer you want this exact color red, and they'll get as close to it as they can.

Real-world color conversion takes a good eye, as well as knowledge of the black arts. However you get your CMYK "plates" done, they need to preserve that particular piece of work, on a particular printer. Having proofs before you sign off on the print job is very important. You simply cannot trust the math...sometimes a particular conversion will look good, other times it wont.

BUT WAIT! That changed when Wikipedia came out with their magic bullet RGB to CMYK formula version 1.1! None of the mathematical weirdness of LAB and ProPhoto, which have to contain imaginary colors in order to better accommodate the real ones. Here's the secret genius: #00FFFF = Cyan!! #FF00FF = Magenta!! #FFFF00 = Yellow!! #000000 = Black!! Yay! I hope it's clear that putting this information on Wikipedia and calling it a CMYK to RGB formula is about as useful as squagles*. Just because we *call* #0FF cyan, does not mean that it is the same color as printer's cyan (which is really a deep dark blue).

Piano tuning is much the same...all about compromise, balance, unique instruments, having a good ear, and the complete lack of a certain set of pitches that are mathematically in tune with each other. Doesn't exist. Don't ask me why.

* NSFW because of a couple of f-bombs :)

Dupe

[Lev13than]

C'mon people - this story is a dupe. I just saw the exact same discussion on e-slashdot.org!

Re:Dupe

[bugnuts]

CowboyNeal has a goatee You spelled that wrong, and forgot the .cx

Re:Dupe

[Rogerborg]

And if I wasn't poor and ugly, I'd be dating Alyson Hannigan. Life's a bitch, isn't it?

What!?

[Aussenseiter]

You mean... someone is taking information freely available on the internet and claiming it as their own for profit reasons? My word, what a shocking turn of events!

Re:What!?

[Titoxd]

It's funny, but you have to consider that the site is a live mirror of Wikipedia. So, they are using Wikipedia's content, through Wikipedia's servers, and then serving ads and spam on top of them. These get nuked by the Wikimedia server administrators quickly.

Re:News for nerds, stuff that matters

[gardyloo]

Yeah! Weren't those the days? There were an awful lot of "CmdrTaco wins Nobel Prizes in Medicine, Peace, and Chemistry" posts, though.

It's no sin

[Eco-Mono]

The sauce is under GFDL. E-Wikipedia is also under GFDL. I don't see the problem.

Re:It's no sin

[paulthomas]

I do not think that the GFDL covers trade marks and trade-dress. A default install of MediaWiki (the open-source engine behind Wikipedia) shows a generic logo with a text description of how to change it to your own.

E-wikipedia.net uses the Wikipedia logo, which would require the explicit permission of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Let me guess...

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

Brought to you by the creators of Limbo of the Lost.

S[cp]ammer alert?

[Antony T Curtis]

I noticed when I scrolled down to the bottom of the "e-wikipedia"'s clone of the About page, there was some junk words at the bottom which were not on the original.

The site is probably just a reverse proxy with a few filters to insert ads, maybe embed malicious content, insert some junk text, white on white, and the site owners probably hope that when people are looking for info using a search engine, that they will mistake the site for the real Wikipedia.

1. Create a Fake-e-pedia site
2. ????
3. Profit!!!

I wonder what their #2 is...

Just my 2cents.

Re:S[cp]ammer alert?

[oahazmatt]

The site is probably just a reverse proxy with a few filters to insert ads, maybe embed malicious content, insert some junk text, white on white, and the site owners probably hope that when people are looking for info using a search engine, that they will mistake the site for the real Wikipedia. Yeah, but like the real Wikipedia, can this one survive the Slashdot effect? Let's find out!

Re:S[cp]ammer alert?

[Anonymous Coward]

Access denied: remote loader detected.

This request has been identified as coming from a remote-loading website. This is not Wikipedia, please update your bookmarks. Access Wikipedia only through *.wikipedia.org.

A remote loader is a website that loads content from another site on each request. The content is typically filtered, framed with ads, and then displayed to the user.

The remote loader either:

        * Pretends to be the source website, perhaps using a deceptive domain name; or
        * Converts all instances of the name of the source website to some other name.

We consider remote loading websites to be an unfair drain on our server resources, and so they are systematically blocked, as this one has been.

Re:S[cp]ammer alert?

[ELProphet]

The site is probably just a reverse proxy with a few filters to insert ads, maybe embed malicious content, insert some junk text, white on white, and the site owners probably hope that when people are looking for info using a search engine, that they will mistake the site for the real Wikipedia. Yeah, but like the real Wikipedia, can this one survive the Slashdot effect? Let's find out! Nope. Wikipedia already cut their access. This is an awesome new form of slashdotting...

1. Proxy someone else's site
2. Add Ads
3. Slashdot
4. Owners of original site block your IP from theirs.
5. NO Profit!

No ??? needed.

Re:I guess we can

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't surprise me in the least.

Not even in the least? Then why didn't you stop it, you monster?!

Google advertising revenue, most probably.

[Spy der Mann]

1. That site will sooner or later be indexed by Google, misleading unwary googlers to the fake site.
2. More hits, more ad revenue.
3. Profit!!

Hopefully, Wikipedia's GFDL license will make possible to have this website banned.

Re:Google advertising revenue, most probably.

[JustinOpinion]

Except that #2 (and therefore #3) is rather unlikely.

If this new site doesn't provide anything above-and-beyond what Wikipedia provides, then few people will link to it, and its PageRank will be low. Without ranking high on Google, no one will find the site, and their ad revenue will be pathetic.

So, I don't really understand their business model here. Unless they offer some "value added" over the normal Wikipedia (quicker load times, vetted articles, better search, etc.), then they can't hope to attract eyeballs to their adds.

Forking is fine. A crappy fork, however, won't attract interest, and won't last long.

Re:Don't log in..

[skelly33]

Aww now you tell me. There goes all my personal banking information that I normally keep safe and sound on the REAL wikipedia site. :(

It appears to be permitted

[DRJlaw]

This does nothing to resolve the trademark problem that the 'mirror' creates, but it is instructive to look at the actual text of the license.

"2. Verbatim Copying [] You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License."

The pages do appear to be verbatim copies of the Wikipedia pages, despite the lack of some images (note: verbatim - in precisely the same words used by a writer or speaker). You'll also note that the license does not require attribution (found in other words in Section 4), just a requirement for reproduction. Wikipedia is the one that must resolve its failure to include a copyright notice on the pages, not the mirror.

Re:It appears to be permitted

[Veinor]

Actually, when an article is deleted and then undeleted, the original author still maintains attribution.

WHOIS information

[Anonymous Coward]

Archived WHOIS on e-wikipedia.net domain from 2008/04/27 (it's now using a privacy protect WHOIS service):

Registration Service Provided By: NameCheap.com
Contact: support@NameCheap.com
Visit: http://www.namecheap.com/

Domain name: e-wikipedia.net

Registrant Contact:
      -
      John Heys (allegro.share2@o2.pl)
      +46.0851041152
      Fax: +1.5555555555
      Virkesvagen 5
      Stockholm, n/a 12030
      SE

Administrative Contact:
      -
      John Heys (allegro.share2@o2.pl)
      +46.0851041152
      Fax: +1.5555555555
      Virkesvagen 5
      Stockholm, n/a 12030
      SE

Technical Contact:
      -
      John Heys (allegro.share2@o2.pl)
      +46.0851041152
      Fax: +1.5555555555
      Virkesvagen 5
      Stockholm, n/a 12030
      SE

Status: Locked

Name Servers:
      ns1.hostpower.pl
      ns2.hostpower.pl

Creation date: 28 Feb 2008 20:23:45
Expiration date: 28 Feb 2009 20:23:45

---

Other domains hosted at that IP:

Strzelecki.info
E-teledyski.org
Giexx.com
Moderowany.net
Songstexts.info
Tibianews.info
Wartibia.com
Wikipedia2009.com
Axeee.com

I'll spare everyone the WHOIS data for all of those domains as well - look it up on your own. :-)

Anonymous coward

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a high school student turn in a long report that obviously wasn't her work. I googled it and she had cut and pasted about 10 pages of material right from Wikipedia into her report. I brought her in, told her that some of the writing didn't look like she wrote it:

Me: "Did you write this whole thing yourself?"
Her: "Yes, of course!"
Me: "Are you sure"
Her: "Yes, 100%"
Me: "Well, a huge chunk of your report is straight from Wikipedia."
Her: "Um, yeah, well, um I wrote that Wikipedia page."

Re:Anonymous coward

[Anonymous Coward]

I can top that, I once had a teacher accuse me of copying from Wikipedia. Only I was able to point to the page history and log into my account to prove that I had in fact written the article

Re:Anonymous coward

[quantaman]

I had a high school student turn in a long report that obviously wasn't her work. I googled it and she had cut and pasted about 10 pages of material right from Wikipedia into her report. I brought her in, told her that some of the writing didn't look like she wrote it:

Me: "Did you write this whole thing yourself?"
Her: "Yes, of course!"
Me: "Are you sure"
Her: "Yes, 100%"
Me: "Well, a huge chunk of your report is straight from Wikipedia."
Her: "Um, yeah, well, um I wrote that Wikipedia page." Slightly OT but that reminds me of a classmate back in high school.

We had to write a report on something, I don't recall what, but the teacher felt the submitted work was somewhat above the writing level of that particular student and questioned its originality. When the student defended their authorship then teacher than preceded to inquire about the passage of the report where the student claimed 20 years of research in the field.

Re:Anonymous coward

[mdmkolbe]

In some contexts this may still be plagiarism. Self plagiarism to be precise. In academic publications it is a big deal, though most wouldn't be too worried about student reports and Wikipedia entries.

Interlibrary loan latency; standard dictionaries

[tepples]

Have you considered using the references that are linked by Wikipedia instead? Yes, but an interlibrary loan would take longer than the instructor has given for the project.

It is about as useful as citing a dictionary. Some fields of study depend on the precise meanings of words and have adopted a set of standard dictionaries. For example, law in the United States uses Black's Law Dictionary, falling back to Merriam-Webster for any other words.

Remote Loading/Leeching

[JustinOpinion]

If you try and access it now, it displays this:

Leech (computing)

Access denied: remote loader detected. This request has been identified as coming from a remote-loading website. This is not Wikipedia, please update your bookmarks. Access Wikipedia only through *.wikipedia.org.

A remote loader is a website that loads content from another site on each request. The content is typically filtered, framed with ads, and then displayed to the user.

The remote loader either:

• Pretends to be the source website,perhaps using a deceptive domain name; or
• Converts all instances of the name of the source website to some other name.

We consider remote loading websites to be an unfair drain on our server resources, and so they are systematically blocked, as this one has been.

So, obviously this site was fetching Wikipedia content in real-time, and sticking in ads and whatnot (rather than using their own local copy of the Wikipedia database). This is obviously a silly drain on Wikipedia's servers.

Moreover, this is a stupid way to design it, since it's trivial for Wikipedia to detect what you're doing, and serve a custom error page, as they have done. In short, why did these people assume Wikipedia was going to let them continue infringing their trademark and taxing their servers?

Re:Remote Loading/Leeching

[Tom]

Because it took how long until this was noticed? They almost certainly made their domain-registration fee back and then some.

Short-living business strategies work, if you chain them together.

Re:Remote Loading/Leeching

[m1ss1ontomars2k4]

Actually, Wikipedia relies on editors to find pages themselves; the detection is far from automatic. I'm assuming that at least 1 Slashdot reader knew what to do in this case, and let the Wikimedia Foundation know about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks#Remote_loading

Evil Genius!

[RingDev]

Step 1) Duplicate highly successful web site, rip off all content, images, layouts, etc...
Step 2) Secure Advertising
Step 3) Submit story on /. and Digg about rampant abuse of IP
Step 4) Profit!

-Rick

Re:Nuked

[OverlordQ]

Well that shoulda been: irc://irc.freenode.org/wikimedia-tech

<Splarka> I clicked http://e-wikipedia.net/w/en/Special:Random and it's trying to load [[Leech_(computing)]] but not having much success
<Splarka> > Access denied: remote loader detected.
<Splarka> <3
<brion> sorry folks, i ruined your fun
<OverlordQ> awww

Aaaand it's over

[spun]

The site now redirects to the wiki article on "Leech (computing)" explaining why you can no longer see any other articles. That was quick.

Re:Aaaand it's over

[mysidia]

Last I checked: they blocked anonymous editing from open proxies. They never blocked reading the Wikipedia from open proxies.

They even potentially allowed edits from open proxies if you had an account (or if you had an account and the username you logged in as was whitelisted).

Re:I guess we can

[Swampash]

Another fine product from... MAJESTIC STUDIOS!

Re:News for nerds, stuff that matters

[SpacePunk]

Yes, I remember. Ahhh, the halcyon days when Slashdot headlines were 100 percent relevent to nerds, and every post was full of knowledge and wisdom. Yes, I remember those days well.

Re:Not a surprise to me...

[Titoxd]

That is not the problem.

The problem is not using the information that Wikipedia provides--after all, that's why it is contributed under copyleft. The problem is that someone is essentially hosting a site that routes all the heavy computational, database, and programming work through Wikimedia's servers, usually with the intention of making a quick buck by spamming or selling ads.

Re:I guess we can

[dnwq]

For the unaware: Majestic Studios.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Gideon Fubar]

I'm amazed at how many people are missing Wikipedia's built in protection against this.

Every page has a history. It's possible to cite a page at a certain time and guarantee that it will be displayed regardless of what changes are made to the article. This, in addition to a diff system (and discussion), makes it better in some ways than hard print, because it allows the reader to map changes over time and consensus/disagreements over contentious topics.

Re:Interlibrary loan latency; standard dictionarie

[mr_matticus]

And definitive use in the law, as well. Merriam-Webster is not a particularly accurate, thorough, or disciplined publication. It's fine as a casual reference, but so is Dictionary.com, American Heritage, and Webster's (the REAL Webster's).

The OED is the English language resource, at least in terms of the high water mark for scholarship. It is that disciplined scholarship that leads to its criticism, however. Precise word choice, where it is important, should not be blunted by an overly populist dictionary with demonstrably lower levels of academic scholarship and fidelity.

If the term has become such a point of contention that the precise dictionary definition is required, then OED is the ultimate arbiter. If you're not squabbling over technicalities and just want the basic gist, then any of the other reputable dictionaries, including M-W, are acceptable. Stopping at M-W, on the other hand, is like saying an encyclopedia is a sufficient technical resource. Encyclopedias and dictionaries are by their nature limited. The OED is unquestionably the most detailed English dictionary, and no other resource can make a contrary claim with any real credibility. That's what makes it valuable in academic, technical, and legal research.