Wikipedia talk:Mirrors and forks/Archive2

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Nexuscience 2 hmmm 3 Non-credited mirrors 4 On behalf of... 5 I'm back! 6 Wikiverse 7 organization of Mirrors and forks 8 GFDL compliance and author listing 9 Reorganizing Mirrors and Forks 10 open-dictionary.com 11 Standard questions 12 intelipedia.com 13 fixedreference.org 14 SourceWatch (formerly Disinfopedia) 15 Selective enforcement 16 Unification Church 17 Saving Wikimedia's bandwith via mirrors? 18 Physicsdaily 19 Iraq Museum International 20 Star Wars wiki 21 mrscienceguy.com 21.1 A nice collection of 10 mirrors I don't think we have yet 22 Wikimirror.com 23 == http://www.nationmaster.com/ == 24 Remote loading 25 Mirror of AfD discussions 26 The nerve of this site to spam here 27 Ad-hoc Disclaimer 28 Copyscape 29 Families of mirrors

Nexuscience

There is a mirror of Wikipedia at www.nexuscience.com. It doesn't appear on Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks, and I'm not sure what the procedure is for dealing with these. At a first glance there seems to be some issues with compliance. For instance, there is no list of main authors, or link back to the Wikipedia article (just to the main page).

The existance of this site came to my attention on new pages patrol when an article about the site was created: Nexuscience.

-Rholton 01:07, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Isn't the article Nexuscience a classic example of WikiSpam. I don't see any encyclopedic value, it is just an advertisement on where to buy Wikipedia on CD. Of course they are free to do so, but they don't need to promote it here. ... [five minutes later] ... Seems like it is already listed on VfD, yet only the deletion warning boilerplate wasn't added into the article. andy 10:38, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Deleting that poxy little article should not be a priority. Instead I would like to see some contact between WP and nexuscience guaranteeing WP a proportion of the income (nexu have a moral but not legal duty to do this) generated. We currently have some leverage over them; they are way in breach of the GFDL - no link to original article, no history of authors, the usual stuff.

P.S. If anyone wants WP on CD, I think I can undercut $30! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:06, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Actually, there is a link back to the Wikipedia article - it's just rather unhelpfully disguised as the title of the page. It also uses somewhat bizarre (presumably v. outdated) links of the form http://www.wikipedia.org/?title=article_name - works, but weird. It also seems to be very inconsistent - they've indexed pages they haven't grabbed and some of the grabs are very out of date; they even have different forms of their own header and footer depending on the age of the grab (compare [1] [2] [3]) What's more every single article has a "contents" link which points at a non-existent page. I can't imagine anyone being foolish enough to pay $30, with no information whatsoever ("Questions? Email Us" - yeah, right, cos that's how all websites give out information :-/), for a CD copy of a hideously broken website; but then, this is the Internet, I suppose... - IMSoP 13:11, 9 May 2004 (UTC) [hmm, if you set up a broken mirror, do you get 7 years bad WikiLuck or something?]

"This is the webmaster and creator of Nexuscience.com. It was created in response to my admiration of the Wikipedia itself, and was not mirrored, but directly downloaded and then re-formatted from a wikipedia dump found on Wikipedia. I had seen a reference to the idea of somebody offering the Wikipedia on CD-ROM, and so endeavored to do so. I found that Wikipedia requested that webspiders not crawl the site, and so downloaded the most recent dump I could find on Wikipedia. I admit that selling the CD may have motivated me to play with the data, but it is the playing with of the data I find intriguing. I hope to cross-reference the articles in new ways with public domain information, possibly the guttenberg project. Any suggestions on compliance with Wikipedia copyright or the GNU/FDL will be considered heavily and adhering to such rules will be a priority of the project. I'm basically doing this for fun, and would be happy to lower the price of the CD-ROM, pledge a donation of the proceeds to Wikipedia, and accept Wikipedia's comments and input on the mirror. I may be a bit more commercial in mindset than the Wikipedia concept as a whole, however I do wish to create a compliant, up to date resource of the Wikipedia, along with other GNU/FDL and public domain resources. Contact information is available on the webpage, I am not sure if I am supposed to post such information here. Any assistance or suggestions on operating Nexuscience.com to the satisfaction of Wikipedia is greatly appreciated. www.nexuscience.com"

Well, I was going to say that that's evidence of someone a lot nicer and more well-meaning than I first gave credit for, but then I spotted something odd - Nexuscience had been unlisted from Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion. Turns out, it was the same user who created the article, and who inserted the above note [4]. Special:Contributions/68.203.192.35 also shows up that they had some fun experimenting with the article while removing the VfD message, too. [5]

Now, I know, AssumeGoodFaith and all that; so there are two positions here:

• If this person is as well-meaning as they say they are, and are just lacking in experience with wikis, website design (broken links and not even an FAQ are not good signs for a commercial project), etc - and have a tendency (like I do myself sometimes) to have grand ideas that they don't actually know how to implement - then somebody needs to take them under their wing and point them to some useful resources. Wikipedia:Database download for a start (why can I never seem to find that page?), and some relevant introductions to the running of Wikipedia. Then, if this ever gets off the ground, we can come to agreement about co-operation, and donations to the Wikimedia Foundation out of the profits, etc.
• If, on the other hand, they are in fact attempting to run some kind of scam - as pointed out on Template:VfD-Nexuscience, the site's parent company sells "envelope stuffing kits" [6]; and displaying an active PayPal link charging $30 for a product that doesn't exist yet doesn't seem entirely honest to me - then we need to disassociate ourselves from them to the greatest extent possible. Indeed, if we can prove it this way round, we should inform their ISP, PayPal, etc. of abuse of services.

To be honest, I'm not sure which route we should follow, and as Jamesday once said on IRC, "we" is an ambiguous concept. But I shouldn't even be doing this (procrastination is a powerful force!), so perhaps someone should take it from here via the contact e-mail address given on the site and try and clear this up... - IMSoP 21:40, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

"This is the webmaster of Nexuscience. I've removed the sales link from the webpage, pending some sort of approval from you guys. I'm certainly not trying to sell a product that doesn't exist. I am aware that there are some linking problems on the website. I had uploaded the index as .htm instead of .html, and have also realized that the capitalization of some of the article links is causing broken links. I was working on correcting that. The local copy of the encyclopedia has no linking problems so far as I know, and neither does the installation file. I got it down to a 488 MB self extracting rar installation file. I'm uploading it to the server and will post a link to it shortly. I didn't really mean to present myself as 'well-meaning', obviously I wasn't giving it away. (although if somebody had bought it they'd be free to). Anyways I hope someone will download it and let me know if I'm in any sort of violation of the GNU license, or if you think in some other way I'd be causing a problem for Wikipedia. I'll quit playing with editing the pages, obviously I'm not making people here happy."

"This is the webmaster of Nexuscience. Please do not download the following file until after 12pm CT on 5/13/04. I am personally downloading it myself at another location to absolutely verify it is fully functional. This installation is meant to be used under Windows 98/XP/NT, and I do not know if it will function on a Linux of Unix machine.Encyclopedia on CD-ROM.

Any comments on quality or compliance are appreciated."

"I would also like to say a few things about the current relationship between Wikipedia and Nexuscience. I have to admit that the response I've gotten from the Wikipedia community is not at all what I expected. I think this is in large part my fault, for having introduced myself by way of what I've now realized is 'Wikispam'. I apologize for this. When creating the article nexuscience, I did have an intent of promoting a product for sale. I had not read over enough of the information on posting guidelines, and was not aware that this constituted an offense in and of itself. I knew that the spirit of Wikipedia certainly was not for advertising, but I've seen external links to commercial sites, as well as articles about commercial sites. I am an internet marketer and am used to writing ad copy. I actually DID expect that somebody else would come along and edit the article to say something about the site, as someone did. What I didn't realize is that creating it in the way that I did in the first place was 'Wikispam'. In retrospect I think that an article on Nexuscience without any particular salesmanship would have been more appropriate, if an article about it would have been appropriate at all. I wanted to let the Wikipedia community know about it, and that seemed to me like the way to go about it. I realize now that it would have been more appropriate to say something about it here, or the village pump, or in the listings for Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks."

"I would like to add that I personally think that the actual Encyclopedia on CD-ROM that I am offering is a good product. It is fully functional, and has appropriate licensing and installation included. Any article can be accessed within 2 clicks of opening the main page. Quick links to various catagories are located at the top of each page. A link to a local copy of the GNU-FDL is included on every page, as is a link to the original Wikipedia article, and a link to the main Wikipedia page. Each content page states 'Source - Wikipedia - Scroll down for more information' at the top, as well as 'From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia' at the bottom of each content page. The index states 'All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, copyright Wikipedia contributors'. As far as I know I am in complete compliance with the GNU-FDL, as well as with Wikipedia's requirements. The CD-ROM installation of the Encyclopedia is not in anyway branded by Nexuscience. In fact anyone who downloads it just to verify my claims could begin distributing it themselves. I claim no copyright on the compilation, and the license agreement for the software installation IS the GNU-FDL."

"It is for these reasons that I do believe that a mention of the fact that a company nexuscience is now offering a functional Encyclopedia on CD-ROM based on Wikipedia content, belongs somewhere in the Wikipedia community. I'm hoping that my previous offense of wikispam about the CD-ROM will not prevent that from happening. A search on google for 'Wikipedia CD' yields 55 results, many of which are discussion on releasing a version of the content on CD-ROM. I also believe that Nexuscience.com itself deserves to be included under Wikipedia:Copies of Wikipedia content (high degree of compliance), albeit with a mention of some broken links. The contents link has been fixed, and I am using an automated fixlinks program to iron out any other broken links. Due to the size of the data and the memory of my computer, I am having to do this in sections, and it may take a week or 2 to complete."

"Due to the fact that I have been guilty of wikispam by promoting the CD-ROM, I will not personally change any other pages outside of discussion, at least not until such point that some other persons here on Wikipedia show some support for my position. I am hoping that after checking out the Encyclopedia themselves, people will realize that although the website has some linking problems, the actual product I have created (compiled from the hard work of the people at Wikipedia), is an honest offering. Hopefully someone here will include Nexuscience in the Wikipedia Mirrors list, and possibly mention the creation of the CD-ROM in some other way. I had actually expected a positive reaction to Nexuscience from Wikipedia, and at worst constructive critisism. To my knowledge Nexuscience is the first company to offer an encyclopedia based on Wikipedia. I have a CD-ROM I can put in any windows computer, the autorun.ini runs the installation and pops up the GNU-FDL, you are guided through a simple installation process, and then you have a great encyclopedia available offline. My hope is that it was how I introduced myself to your community that has caused any problems, and that people will see that it is not some 'scam' trying to sell a product 'so broken and useless that selling it for $29.95 would be criminal'. I think a mirror of the Wikipedia on CD-ROM is a useful and good thing, and has at least some value. I will wait and see what y'all have to say before I proceed. On a personal note I actually did put almost 2 months of my spare time into creating the CD, and tried different methods, such as using eBook creation software. Any method I tried other than an HTML tree and .rar installation either was too large to fit on CD, was very (very!) slow loading, or else could not handle the 220,000+ files. Regardless of what happens, I still think that the Wikipedia is a really cool idea."

First let me compliment you on keeping your cool and having a rational conversation. In my experience, many sins are forgiven here on Wikipedia if people are rational, and you've done a good job.

I'd say that you made a mistake in posting what amounts to an ad on Wikipedia. You've already said that you realize that was a mistake. Again, in my experience that is the sort of mistake that people will not hold against you for very long if you learn from your mistake.

You have also made a second mistake, one which could be held against you for much longer if you are not careful. That is, you removed the VFD listing both from the Nexuscience page and from Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion. That is a major bad around here.

Even with this, most people will write it off to lack of understanding of our processes if the behavior is not repeated and the "offender" is rational.

I know that your site has received some harsh criticism. It's good to hear that you're working to improve things. I don't know about anyone else (though I could guess), but I know that I would not be happy if someone (anyone) were to distribute a copy of Wikipedia that does not reflect the Wikipedia quality. This is, of course, a risk that the GFDL leaves us open to, but it doesn't mean I'd be happy about it. Rightly or wrongly, I think many people developed this sort of negative view of your site. You have apparently done a good job of treating this as constructive criticism.

Personally, I don't think there is a need for you to abstain entirely from participating on Wikipedia until any issues surrounding your website are resolved. In fact, making some solid, non-controversial contributions to Wikipedia would help to show your good faith. But please do try to become familiar with our standards and procedures. A good place to start is Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers.

Finally, I'd suggest creating a user account...

Oops! My mistake, you do have an account. Please try to remember to log in and sign your non-article postings (i.e. on talk pages, etc.). You can do this easily by using ~~~~ for username and date/time, or ~~~ for just username. Rholton 13:43, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

-Rholton 13:21, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Er, what is "the webmaster of Nexuscience"'s account name, exactly? I can't find it. I wanted to offer my sympathy for getting off on the wrong foot with Wikipedia on the User_talk page, but if I don't know what the account name is, I can't... Rholton, could you post it here? JesseW 04:21, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

hmmm

IT seems that all the mirrors seem to be taking my user page...In it's form from june of 2003! There should be a thing that makes them update it at least once a month! Ilyanep 14:55, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Why? The content is not provided under a temporary licence, where anyone can copy it, but must come back and recopy it otherwise it will expire - that would be more like shareware than free content. That some of the mirrors aren't clever enough to weed out the User: namespace (and, indeed, all non-encyclopedia namespaces) is annoying, but the content is nonetheless all licensed under the GFDL, so there's not a lot we can do about it (I have seen some people put notices like "This content is only meaningful on http://en.wikipedia.org"). If you don't want stuff being copyable under those terms, it shouldn't be on this wiki in the first place. - IMSoP 15:35, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Non-credited mirrors

Lately, any Google search returns wikipedia and its mirrors in the top searches, so when one wants to find information on the web to corroborate claims in wikipedia articles, it's necessary to add "-wikipedia" to your search. But this also finds you some interesting websites:

• breakpt.org carries wikipedia's articles and credits wikipedia with a gif file, so the text "from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" shows up, but search engines don't know that the text is from wikipedia. The additional effect is that if you copy and paste just the text of the article, there is no trace of the article being from Wikipedia. Weird and cheeky, but probably acceptable.

• smartpedia.com is much more interesting. It carries all the content without mentioning wikipedia once. If you search their site for wikipedia, all you get are 3 error messages containing wikipedia's url. If you enter wikipedia manually into their url, you get a copy of Wikipedia, with every instance of wikipedia changed to smartpedia. Their only acknowledgment of the wikipedia is a link saying just "SOURCE" at the bottom of their pages which mostly leads to appropriate wikipedia pages, but the one on their main page is broken.

These are more or less link farms really. I wonder what our policy is on this? Zocky 23:33, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copyrights - it looks like both of your examples are OK. But the corroboration problem is still an issue for any article that has been around for a while (and thus is copied by thousands of websites). --mav 05:04, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I like it. smartpedia/Wikipedia says "Smartpedia (www.smartpedia.com) is a copyleft encyclopedia that is collaboratively developed using wiki software. Smartpedia is managed and operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation." --Henrygb 18:43, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

And then there's http://www.chat11.com , which doesn't seem to mention Wikipedia or the GFDL at all. It doesn't seem to be compliant at all.

And re Smartpedia: You'd think that, if they're going to claim that they're a freely editable wiki, then they should make sure they're actually a freely editable wiki... Lucky Wizard 23:17, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

On behalf of...

I've removed this:

Also, when contacting a website, it may be preferred to temporarily change your email name to one naming Wikimedia as the body you are writing on behalf of, e.g. "PR".

I don't think people should be claiming to be acting on behalf of Wikimedia when they are not. When there is an official PR department within the Foundation, it's going to cause confusion if everyone sending out GFDL violation letters is claiming to be acting as part of that department. Angela (disclaimer) 14:07, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

I'm back!

I've been gone from wikipedia from quite a while. Since I created the original version of this page Wikipedia:Sites that use Wikipedia as a source I'm happy to see it still exists in some form. I'm uncertain why it was moved, but am happy to see it is still active. Maybe someone could give me a brief update as to what has happened with out efforts to root out unautorized use of wikipedia content? Thanks. { MB | マイカル } 21:44, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

Wikiverse

Has anyone done any followup with Wikiverse to get them to comply with GFDL? RickK 21:44, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

I think maybe not enough people noticed the Wikiverse debate. I've moved it onto Wikipedia:Copies of Wikipedia content (undetermined or disputed compliance) to get the attention of anyone who's watching that page, and to highlight the need for further action. Personally, I think it's not all that undetermined - their level of compliance looks pretty bad to me - but I'd like more people to weigh in because the main issue, the lack of links to each original article, deserves to be clarified more prominently. It's not just about Wikiverse; any mirror seeking to enhance its search ranking over ours will be tempted to leave out the individual article links, unless we spell this out more clearly and aggressively. I had to read several sections of Wikipedia:Copyrights and Wikipedia:Verbatim copying several times before I was convinced I understood this point... which makes arguments like the one we had with the Wikiverse guy pretty tedious. ←Hob 23:35, 2004 Sep 2 (UTC)

organization of Mirrors and forks

Hmm, I'm a little confused about how to use the mirrors & forks page. Is a newly discovered site with questionable compliance supposed to be added under "Preliminary investigations", "First warnings", or Wikipedia:Copies of Wikipedia content (undetermined or disputed compliance)? Several users have expressed confusion about where to list things and how to know if anyone else is "on the case". ←Hob 23:56, 2004 Sep 2 (UTC)

I agree and am going to move all the bottom of this page to the relevent sections (mostly to undetermined/disputed) (done)

--Davelane 19:28, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind me for asking but who is Davelane? You've been here a week and you're making significant changes to an esoteric section of Wikipedia? Are you a returning user or long-time anon? - Tεxτurε 21:37, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

ooh, no thats fine (assuming i don't take what you say the wrong way :) ), erm I've lurked for a bit made a few minor edits etc. - I also used to run a wiki so ive got a reasonable idea of what I think I should be doing (could do with some formatting skills for wikipedia) -- I've mostly tried to tidy up this section rather then change content, (which should be IMHO less esoteric....) I don't intend to make any more significent changes to these pages at the moment -- If you have any suggestions about my editing can you leave them on my talk page... If you disagree with what i've done in general then leave a comment here.

Cheers --Davelane 14:00, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

GFDL compliance and author listing

I have noticed this point was discussed on the Archive1 page of this talk page, and my opinion seems rather divergent of the consensual one. I think it is not irrelevant to point it there.

I shall begin by quoting the debate on the Archive1 page :

"Total compliance:

• Mentions Wikipedia as well as at least five of the Wikipedia users who created the page. (...)

Get rid of "Total compliance"; We don't ask for that and nobody does it. (...) --mav 19:05, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

(...)

One easy way of meeting the listing the authors requirement is by linking to Wikipedia copy of the article. -- Popsracer 11:02, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC) "

Sorry, but I disagree with both mav and Popsracer : at least I _do_ ask for mention of coauthors of the page, and at least I do _not_ think a link to the wikipedia page is enough for compliance.

I have today sent the following http form to wordiq.com

"Dear sir, dear madam,

I stumbled today on the page http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Special_member_state_territories_and_their_relations_with_the_EU

This page is clearly a modification of the page http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special_member_state_territories_and_their_relations_with_the_EU&oldid=6040128 (that is the version of a Wikipedia page as of September 20th 2004) of which I am a co-author, as can be checked on this page history ; as can also be easily checked, both pages are not identical -indeed on wordiq at least the sentence "Furthermore, several countries do not recognize the French claim to "Adelie Land (...)" has been added (as it has been added on ulterior versions of the Wikipedia).

As required by section Modifications B) of the GFDL licence, you should have "list[ed] on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five)". This has not been done.

I am sure you will correct this flaw in a reasonable delay.

Sincerely yours, Pierre Lavaurs"

Of course, I shall keep wikipedia community informed of their answer when I receive it. --French Tourist 12:18, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Added a few hours later : I sent a similar query to omniknow.com --French Tourist 16:07, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

First results : a very quick and understanding answer from wordiq, who were quite receptive to my suggestion to establish links towards the Wikipedia history pages (and promised to do it in the next days). --French Tourist 17:28, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A link to the article history page has been placed after the sentence crediting Wikipedia and the licencing info. and it works. Apwoolrich 20:13, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Reorganizing Mirrors and Forks

The mirrors and forks page needs a reorganization. It's quite difficult to use; we spend a lot of time carefully moving items from one place to another, all of which is unnecssary, and it's genearlly confusing. I understand the need to divide up the pages somehow, as we have too many mirrors and forks to list them all(including discussion) on one page, but I think an alphabetical system would be much easier to deal with. We spend considerable time deciding(based on unclear criteria) and then moving items from low to medium, or from unknown to high, or whatever, all of which loses history information and makes it harder to find things as they keep moving around. This is a mistake. If we listed things on, say 5 pages that divided the alphabet in fifths(leaving room for further expansion, that way), then pages would not need to be moved(except to alphetize them, and even that wouldn't normally require moving items between pages) and we wouldn't (unless we wanted to) have these "levels", and we could get down to the serious process of getting all our mirrors listed, supportive, and helping Wikipedia to grow and prosper(as they should; we help them a lot). JesseW 10:08, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That sounds very sensible -- maybe sites that are fully in compliance onto a different page as it will make it easier for website maintainers to see they are not following the rules? The current setup works well in the way that its obvious which sites disregard the rules totaly. just my 2p we could make sub pages for those sites that have the most discussion? maybe a more clever techinical solution is needed? --Davelane 12:57, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with your comments. I realized what the proper answer is. We should have one page(or set of pages) in alphabetical order for discussing and gathering information about mirrors, and other lists to determine things like which sites totally violate the rules, which ones are complient or even are supportive (like the people who donated, or the static mirror people, or other such). I'll get started on doing this now; you're the main person whose opinion I wanted before I did anything. JesseW 16:14, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sigh. After about 3 hours of work, I've got the new form set up. See it on the main page, and if you don't mind, try filling in the other sections of the GFDL Compliance list. Ask me if you have any questions... JesseW 18:53, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's a much better system; we actually had multiple items for the same website, and there was no easy way to find out. Now that the whole list is alphabetized it is much easier to see. JesseW 18:55, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To move the remaining sections over from the old to the new system there are some tricks that I've used. I am a Emacs user, so they involve Emacs, but they should be portable to other systems. First, I use a bookmarklet from Wikipedia:Tools on the ToC, and copy the resulting text into an Emacs buffer. I then rearange the text until it's in the form of #link anchor|link name]], using regexs. Then I sort the lines, so they will be more or less in alphabetical order; then I paste [[Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/Abc in front of the ones that start with A, B, or C, and repeat for the other sections. Then I copy the result onto the GFDL compliance section. I hope this makes any sense. If I doesn't, please let me know and I'll try to fix it or explain better. Thanks!

Also, regarding adding messages to the old pages, I'll do that right now. JesseW 09:46, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ok. It's moved over. The old pages are now just messages telling people to go to the main page for instructions. their information is on the alphebetical pages, and the categorizing is on the page GFDL Compliance. There are a lot of other useful lists we could make, partial copies, forks, hidden by googling "-wikipedia", etc. JesseW 15:46, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

open-dictionary.com

The site http://open-dictionary.com/ (mirror of the English Wiktionary) doesn't follow the GFDL. I sent them a mail. To be check to see if they come back on track. Yann 21:14, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Standard questions

I think it would be good if we formalized some questions that should be asked about any mirror or fork. Here are some ideas; if you like them, please comment, so I'll know if there's support. If you don't, please comment so they can be fixed.

• Each page with Wikipedia content:
  • must state that the Wikipedia content comes from Wikipedia
  • must have a link to the article at Wikipedia
  • must state that the Wikipedia content is under the GFDL
  • must have a link the text of the GFDL
  • must include the word "Wikipedia" in such a way as a search engine can read it as part of the page.

Are there other things we would add to this list? Could we put this on the front of the Mirrors and forks page, and also on pages that describe how to use wikipedia content elsewhere? JesseW 17:20, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Quoted, without loss of context or alteration (besides emphasis), from GNU Free Documention License:

"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. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading
or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept
compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of
copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3. 

You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may
publicly display copies.

(disclaimer: I (Guy M) am not in the legal profession (although I read ordinances/statues/laws for a pastime))

I think many have failed to read (or maybe understand) the GFDL.

• If content is used commercially (for profit) or not, is irrelevant in ALL cases, and shouldn't even be taken into consideration.
• When a user (a person) edits any page, just beneath the edit box, it states "All contributions to Wikipedia are released under the GNU Free Documentation License" Editors release content to WP under GFDL. Making WP bound to the GFDL. After reading that previous statement, I redirect attention to the highlighted text of the GFDL above.
  • Remember that when attempring to place additional conditions on coping WP content.
• Accept does not mean require (This may favor WP when confronting other non-conforming sites) Although another section allows for compensation for providing the content.

(Not that I agree with the next two "Loopholes" but I'm trying to be fair or, if you will NPOV)

• 1 Blocking anyone from accessing the content here for the purpose of coping, is against the GFDL, even if they do break license. By doing so, Wikipedia breaks the license with the editors.
  • (From a legal sense) I'm sure/hope harmful bandwidth hijacking or any other "resource hogging" actions, would be considered acceptable reasons for blockage, since the accessibility of content would be at risk (the many out weigh the few?)

J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access
to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given
in the Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be placed in the
"History" section. You may omit a network location for a work that was published
at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of
the version it refers to gives permission. 

• 2 Here's a catch 22 for you. It does not require notice of any type on the actual page, but in the history section (which in the case of wiki's ... you see where this is going??)

Guy M 23:40, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

With reference to open-encyclopedia.com's usage, change the point "must have a link to the article at Wikipedia" to "must have a link to the article at Wikipedia that is labelled as such" - they have a link, but it's not labelled as a link to Wikipedia. How about add compulsory edit button?? Otherwise I agree Enochlau 10:27, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What i think i will do is define better what is meant by high, medium and low compliance which might make this easier to answer.... --Davelane 11:04, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

We need to be clear on what is high compliance in a kind of checklist, and maybe some examples?

I think to be 100% we need to say (edited from above)

Each page with Wikipedia content must undertake the following;

• Acknowledge content comes from Wikipedia
  • by including the text "Article content based on <a href="http://wikipedia.org">Wikipedia</a>" (change the link for other language wikipedias)
• Link to Wikipedia article
  • by a link called "Editable copy at Wikipedia"
• State Wikipedia content is licenced under the GFDL
  • by including the text "Content from Wikipedia is available under the <a href="http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License">GNU Free Documentation License</a>"
• Link to the text of the GFDL
• Include the word "Wikipedia" in such a way as a Google and Yahoo search including the text "-wikipedia" does not bring up the page and a Google and Yahoo search including "+wikipedia" does.

"Additional Conditions" - are clearly not allowed by GFDL (See above) Guy M 23:40, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

We also need to define medium and low... maybe medium -- includes some of the above -- low -- includes none of the above? --Davelane 13:30, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We should add Enochlau's suggestion above, by defining specifc texts or link names for the required conditions. Also, we should clarify the search engine condition. (I've taken the liberty of editing your list to do these things.)

I think high should be satisfing all of the above conditions(including the specified texts), and medium should be satisfying 75%(i.e. 6 out of the current 8, or satisfying all our requirements, but only using one of our texts or ) or more of them (counting each bulleted point above as 1 point), and low should be everything else. Undetermined would be new sites we don't have enough information on, and disputed(I would seperate them) would be for sites where there is dispute about whether or not they satisfy some condition listed above. (Hopefully the conditions would be clear enough that this would not be too common.)

We should also probably change the name of this list from "GFDL compliance" to something like "well behaved mirror status", since the specified texts, at least, cannot be required by our specific use of the GFDL(i.e. no unchangeable sections). Thoughts? Changes to the conditions? Legal problems? JesseW 22:34, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Additional Conditions" - are clearly not allowed by GFDL (See above) Guy M 23:40, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

First, I am not a lawyer. My comments here are those of a (semi-knowledgeable) amateur.

Whatever we decide to do here, let's keep in mind what other sources on Wikipedia have to say. For instance, Wikipedia:Standard GFDL violation letter. The letters are much more limited in their requests, and only specify a link to the text of the GFLD, and a direct link back to the source article on Wikipedia. Aside from this, there is no request for any acknowledgment of Wikipedia itself. Our license is GFDL. We must not add any additional requirements.

I understand the desire to have a list of "well behaved mirror sites", and I sure would like to have more clarity on what exactly does represent "high compliance" with the GFDL. However, perhaps we're talking about two separate issues? -Rholton 01:00, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, it is important to remember that the GFDL does not allow additional requirements. Let me try to explain what I'm trying to do here. I think it would be a Good Thing if as many of the mirrors of wikipedia content as possible followed the guidelines above. I assume this is not a matter of major disagreement. (If so, please speak up!) I realize we cannot use complying with the GFDL as a means of requiring sites to do this. I think this is a good thing, actually, as further restrictions (like required texts) could make trouble in some odd cases, so fewer restrictions is better. Actually, exactly what satisfies the GFDL with respect to Wikipedia content is not crystal clear(witness our discussions here and on the mirror pages)

My idea is that we could gently attempt to refocus attention (both among Wikipedians and those who mirror our content) from "complying with the GFDL", to "collectively supporting this useful resource". On our end, this would allow us to encourage mirrors to provide edit links, search engine clues for filtering out wikipedia content, more publicity, etc. From the mirror makers perspective, anything that makes Wikipedia able to produce more, better, content for them is a win for them. (I'm simplying slightly here, but it is somewhat intentional. This is how I want our mirrors to think about the situation.)

A first step in doing this would be do de-emphsize the GFDL Compliance list, and instead, set up a list called "well behaved mirrors" or "Mirror Guidelines Implementation"(I'm just trying to come up with as many names as possible, since I don't much like any of the ones I've heard yet ;-)). It would be based on the full guidelines, rather than the somewhat unclear, and (importantly) lacking criterion of GFDL compliance. We would also have to update the various other documents, changing references to the GFDL violation letter to the "suggested improvements letter", etc. What do you all think of this idea? Is it feasible, is it a good idea? JesseW 04:16, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps we actually need two separate lists. One called Wikipedia Partners (or whatever), and the other being the present list of mirrors and forks. Seems that each has its own use. "Partners" would emphasize those sites that meet the higher standards, such as above. The "mirrors and forks" would serve as an exhaustive list, with an assessment of their compliance with GFDL. Both lists must be handled carefully with respect to licenses. "Partners" must not seem to be adding terms to the license, while "mirrors and forks" must not seem to be giving legal advice or approval (something I've just come to realize may be an issue -- when I say that a site has a high degree of compliance, I am only offering my unprofessional opinion, and am not in any way guarenteeing full compliance.)

One important thing to know and remember is that there are truly sites out there that seem completely unaware or unconcerned with GFDL compliance, and some that seem determined to just steal the content and make money off it. There are others who, while making money off the contents, are eager to comply with GFDL, though they may not know how (heck, I'm not sure I know how). For me, it's important to help those who want it or will accept it, and to crack down on those who flout the GFDL. That is, as I see it, the main point of Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks.

-Rholton 22:03, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC).

I wasn't going to get involved in emailing people, but someone from logicjungle.com contacted me about the listing I had added here. I didn't find any example response letter which fitted what needed to be said, and so I spent a while composing a polite email recommending improvements. Here's an extract. Other's might find this useful to paste into their emails, but I'm not sure how close I am to the 'official' line on this. Is there a place for sample letters? Should this be moved there? changed at all? Anyway I put the extract here, in the hope that it will be useful.

[some introductory points in the context of logicjungle.com]...

...For example on your copy of the 'Economics' article, you have a small non descriptive link at the bottom.

To give credit to the orginal authors and all the hard work that has gone into producing this text, it would be more appropriate for you to add a link (preferably in full size font) worded like this:

This text was callaboratively authored and edited on <A HREF="Wikipedia.org" TITLE="Wikipedia. The free encyclopedia">Wikipedia.org</A>. See the <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics">original editable 'Economics' article</A>.

Wikipedia's articles are released under GFDL, which means anyone copying content must (among other things) acknowledge the main authors. In the case of wikipedia the concept of authorship is somewhat nebulous. Some claim compliance can be accomplished with a link back to Wikipedia's article. Crediting the authors is the purpose and legal intention of the link you are providing here. As such it is debatable whether the small non-descriptive link you are currently providing is sufficient to legally comply with GFDL.

...but legalities aside. I'm sure you understand that although the Wikipedia community is grateful to anyone who makes our free content more available, any copies made around the internet should contain proper links giving credit to the original wikipedia.org sources. It is only fair on the people who wrote these articles.

Once again thanks for emailing me about this and demonstrating your desire to comply.

Harry Wood - wikipedia.org user (Nojer2)

Logicjungle implemented my suggestions quickly. I guess this means we can class them as a 'well-behaved' mirror, athough a mirror without such humungous money-making banner adds would be more well behaved. I agree that we should compile a list of 'well-bahaved' mirrors, to provide an incentive for them to behave better (better than what is legally required). The list should be duplicated on this berlios wiki page , as a useful resource when wikipedia is down. -- Nojer2 14:27, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Some of these (such as requiring a link back) are effectively adding conditions to the GFDL. You cannot add conditions to the GFDL however much you may wish to because most of your articles were contributed on the basis of the GFDL as is; so it breaks your own copyright to add restrictions. --BozMo|talk 13:40, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

intelipedia.com

intelipedia.com is replicating all pages on Wikipedia (including even [7] and my user page), as well as hotlinking to all images on Wikipedia off the upload.wikimedia.org server. Does Wikimedia mind them hotlinking to the images? Shouldn't the server configuration be modified to deny hotlinking images except from Wikimedia servers? And is there any way we could get them to stop replicating User:, User_talk:, Talk: and Wikipedia: pages? Somebody in the WWW 10:53, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Filled in there feedback form see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/Ghi --Davelane 14:04, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It seems to even have Special: pages such as [8] on it - which seem current. Why does it have Special: pages? Could it be simply retreiving pages from Wikipedia via HTTP for every request and simply stripping out Wikipedia's headers+footers? Or how does it work? Somebody in the WWW 00:32, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

fixedreference.org

Upon a google search with the terms labido wikipedia, The top result was http://july.fixedreference.org/en/20040724/wikipedia/Hubie_and_Bertie [9]

Please see if you can find a link back to en.wikipedia. I did not. CQ 15:34, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

It is my site and I can tell you with confidence it does not link directly back, it just cites en.wikipedia as the source and clearly states in the disclaimer that the article came from there. I cannot see any way in which the GFDL requires a link back. There are clean links back to wikipedia (i.e. without nofollow) elsewhere in fixedreference.org but I do not believe that there need to be.--BozMo|talk 13:35, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, proud though I am of what we have done at wikipedia I think we need to get a little perspective on who is doing who a favour. http://FixedReference.org carries no adverts (except a top page to a charity) and makes no income. It delivers half a million pages of Wikipedia to 13000 independent IPs every day almost all of whom I'll wager (as it says so everywhere) know exactly where the content comes from. Why? Because (on Alexa's numbers) it is one of the fastest sites (top 15%) whereas WP is one of the slowest. I put it up so I could browse and I will put a more recent copy up when I've got a bit of time. The French copy was put up in response to a request on the Bistro. All this traffic keeps "read only" visitors away from the en. site which is already barely coping. I am sure many other mirrors are the same--BozMo|talk 08:08, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

SourceWatch (formerly Disinfopedia)

The guide for contributors on Disinfopedia said that Wikipedia articles could be imported but didn't mention the requirements of GFDL compliance. I added what I thought was appropriate guidance. Someone else moved most of my addition to the talk page because he wasn't sure I was right. Well, I'm not sure I was right either -- but I'm dubious about his suggestion on the talk page that the requirement of author credit is satisfied merely by stating that material came from "Wikipedia", without naming authors or linking to page history (and perhaps without even linking to our article). Anyone who wants to chime in will find the discussion here. JamesMLane 01:39, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You are correct, the other editor is wrong. --mav 00:54, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Seems Disinfopedia have changed name to SourceWatch. So the relavent page/section is now [Contributing#Can_I_add_Wikipedia_articles_to_SourceWatch. Looks OK now doesn't it? and this seems to be the discussion referred to above. Hmmm Think I'll stay out of that one :-) -- Nojer2 14:51, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's OK; it's not as carefully spelled out as what I wrote. Incidentally, does Wikipedia have an "official" position as to whether a link back to our article is sufficient, without a separate link to the page history as a way of identifying the principal authors? JamesMLane 20:11, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Selective enforcement

Are we just using parts of GFDL that benefit WP and over looking the rest?

Quoted, without loss of context or alteration (besides emphasis), from GNU Free Documention License:

"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. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading
or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept
compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of
copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3. 

You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may
publicly display copies.

(disclaimer: I (Guy M) am not in the legal profession (although I read ordinances/statues/laws for a pastime))

I think many have failed to read (or maybe understand) the GFDL.

• If content is used commercially (for profit) or not, is irrelevant in ALL cases, and shouldn't even be taken into consideration.
• When a user (a person) edits any page, just beneath the edit box, it states "All contributions to Wikipedia are released under the GNU Free Documentation License" Editors release content to WP under GFDL. Making WP bound to the GFDL. After reading that previous statement, I redirect attention to the highlighted text of the GFDL above.
  • Remember that when attempring to place additional conditions on coping WP content.
• Accept does not mean require (This may favor WP when confronting other non-conforming sites) Although another section allows for compensation for providing the content.

(Not that I agree with the next two "Loopholes" but I'm trying to be fair or, if you will NPOV)

• 1 Blocking anyone from accessing the content here for the purpose of coping, is against the GFDL, even if they do break license. By doing so, Wikipedia breaks the license with the editors.
  • (From a legal sense) I'm sure/hope harmful bandwidth hijacking or any other "resource hogging" actions, would be considered acceptable reasons for blockage, since the accessibility of content would be at risk (the many out weigh the few?)

J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access
to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given
in the Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be placed in the
"History" section. You may omit a network location for a work that was published
at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of
the version it refers to gives permission. 

• 2 Here's a catch 22 for you. It does not require notice of any type on the actual page, but in the history section (which in the case of wiki's ... you see where this is going??)

Guy M 23:44, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

• • Please differentiate "you must give access to" from "you may not stop copying". If they have a copy they are free to copy it. If they don't have a copy, then wikimedia haven't given them a copy and don't have to. Since Wikimedia gives out HTML which is a "transparent" medium, any obligation to the end user appears to end with their download. Mozzerati 22:05, 2005 Mar 8 (UTC)

Unification Church

I'm working with a foundation related to the Unification Church of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, to help them create and publish an encyclopedia. We're exploring right now whether (and how) they can do this in a way which is of mutual benefit to both parties (Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikipedia community on one hand, and the IIFWP/IIFRP on the other). They've used words like "U-Wikipedia" or "SourceBook" to describe their project internally.

I want the process to be transparent and fair. I trust mav to guide me (remember "you have my proxy, mav"?).

I'm not sure whether it will be a mirror, a fork, or a transcluded neo-Ted Nelsonian smorgasbord, but it sounds exciting!

They're proposing to copy our 500,000 articles and contribute several thousand of their own (which they've had on ice for several years). They'll also add their own twist to approximately 8% (but I think they over-estimate that number).

What I need help working out is the details of the relationship. I browsed the ABC and DEF sections, looking for a "model of compliance", but it seems everyone just uses Wikipedia without the slightest thought of giving credit or providing proper links, or even the courtesy of a letter or phone call.

I've been a Wikipedian for 3.5 years now, and I'm really excited by this new project, and I don't want to blow it, and I'm really worried about getting off to a bad start. Please advise!! -- Uncle Ed (talk) 21:48, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Saving Wikimedia's bandwith via mirrors?

Given the perrenial problems with bandwidth and traffic, I was wondering if anyone thinks it might be a good idea to have a page that presents a short list of several mirrors that are well done and up to date. [Clusty.com] might be a good one, for example.

This would make it easier for users who were so inclined to use Wikipedia for editing and for up-to-date reading, but mirrors for other reading. Links to the page could be put on relevant pages, like pages mentioning WP's tremendous growth, or Yahoo/Google hosting, or fundraising drives, etc.

Apologies if this has been previously discussed; I couldn't find the idea anywhere else. Zach 02:05, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Physicsdaily

Physicsdaily.com seems to use physics and many related pages, without attribution (in fact, it sticks a Copyright 2005 PhysicsDaily.com at the bottom of the page... ugh.) Would anyone like to deal with this? -- CYD

Iraq Museum International

Iraq Museum International appears to be a live mirror of Wikipedia: when you click a link, it fetches the latest version of the page from Wikipedia, formats it, and sticks their header and footer on. At the bottom is boilerplate text that says "You may freely contribute to this article, Mesopotamia, using the authoring tools provided at the article's source, Wikipedia.org, sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation. This page always displays the most recent revision of the article; all previous versions may be viewed here." At the very bottom is a copyright statement "©2005 Iraq Museum International" --Carnildo 19:39, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• The site only features articles related to Mesopotamia and Iraq, but these articles, like any sampling of Wikipedia articles, are within 3 internal links of many off-topic articles. The site's standard copyright notice has now been dropped for these pages, and the explanation at the bottom of each page provides GNU Free Documentation License language suggested by Tonio Green who emailed the Baghdad Museum Project on behalf of Wikipedia. The Baghdad Museum Project team cheerfully made the changes Tonio suggested the same day. The explanation now reads:
• You may freely contribute to this article using the authoring tools provided at the article's source, Wikipedia.org, sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation. In addition, this article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, which means that you may copy and modify it as long as the entire work, including your additions, remains under this license. Iraq Museum International always displays the most recent published revision of the article; all previous versions may be viewed here.

In addition, the paragraph above includes the article title and a link to the Wikipedia article itself, the GNU Free Documentation License, and to the history of the article on Wikipedia.

A site-wide copyright notice -- which may have been misinterpreted by Wikipedians as a claim on the Wikipedia article appearing on a particular page -- has now been dropped altogether on all the Wikipedia pages. (Wikipedia articles can link to pages protected under US Copyright law, but do comments and sidebars added outside a Wikipedia article on the same webpage count as additions under the GNU License? In other words, if a Wikipedia article appears on a web page and Gore Vidal writes an essay about the Wikipedia article just below it, can the essay be copyrighted?) On the BaghdadMuseum/Iraq Museum International site, where the copyright notice used to be is now the statement: "The Iraq Museum International Open Encyclopedia is offered to the public under the GNU Free Documentation License" with yet another link to the GNU Free Documentation License.

Star Wars wiki

This is more of a question, but I noticed this new Wiki Star Wars wiki uses many articles copied and pasted from Wikipedia. All it really says is "This is a coordinated effort among Wikipedians to provide more detailed Star Wars content. While Wikipedia is for more general, encyclopedic knowledge, the Star Wars Wiki is for the Star Wars fan who wants to learn/provide more about the Star Wars Universe." This doesn't exactly say that a ton of the information as being from Wikipedia. Compare The Phantom Menace and The Phantom Menace. Is this a violation or what? I'm kind of confused on the whole Wikipedia copyright deal. K1Bond007 22:16, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

mrscienceguy.com

Is this a violation? As near as I can tell the bio's of the people (chemists, etc) are copies of the corresponding wikipedia articles from between the June 20, 2004 and July 10th 2004. Compare the following:

• Dmitri Mendeleev and [10] (this version seems to be the closest)
• François Jacob and [11]
• Amedeo_Avogadro and [12]

I'm at work so I don't have access to the wayback machine (it's blocked) but it sure looks to me like they copied from wikipedia, and not the other way around. Can someone else verify? Wikibofh 15:22, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Looks like it's an unauthorized mirror. Wayback machine doesn't show this stuff before 2005 (stops at 2005). I'll move to reports. Wikibofh 23:03, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A nice collection of 10 mirrors I don't think we have yet

Sigh: [13] the intro sentance from Process theology produces 11 responses from google. I don't recongize any of the 10 in the first page(the 11th is our old friend wikimirror.com). Could somebody go through and add these entries? I just finished adding 4 or 5 other ones from other google tests. Thanks. JesseW 07:21, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikimirror.com

I'm not sure if anyone's mentioned this before, but wikimirror.com ([14]) is listed as having high compliance, even though it doesn't link back to the page, doesn't link to a copy of the GFDL and doesn't mention any of the authors of the content. Also, it either has a _very_ up to date database dump or it's pulling the content directly from our servers? -- Joolz 00:52, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

== http://www.nationmaster.com/ ==

I was submitting articles on an idealistic basis, and now I find that Wikipedia is mirrored and baked into commercial sites! I am not sure of how to react to this. But immediatelly it doesn't feel good! Can anyone convince me why I shouldn't consider it scam – so I won't lose my inspiration – please? A mirror example: http://www.nationmaster.com/ with advertisements, or links to sites with commercial content. Profero 19:33, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Remote loading

Doesn't it use much less in resources to remote load Wikipedia than to download the entire database every time it comes out?

Also, what about proxy servers, is it prohibited to run a proxy server which serves Wikipedia pages?

Mirror of AfD discussions

I found a mirror of AfD discussions. It immediately redirects to another page, so the url is a Google cache using the page's title as a search. -- Kjkolb 23:14, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

The nerve of this site to spam here

This site is an exact copy of Wikipedia article on Pakistan Air Force and the owners of the site don't have any GFDL or anything suggesting it is taken from Wikipedia. They are just passing off that content as their own and to top it all, they keep readding the site link to the External links section in the very article. The content is copied from August 16 version so newer changes might not be reflected but it is a shameless copy by the webmaster who has the nerve to spam the very copy here!!! Idleguy 12:13, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Ad-hoc Disclaimer

I remove the disclaimer about how the whole "Non-compliance process" section is an "ad-hoc formalization" or whatever. It's been here forever, and is just as much valid advice as most other pages in the Wikipedia namespace. In fact, I'd like to declare this page a guideline, if no one objects. It would help provide some focus to the whole effort, I think. Superm401 | Talk 23:11, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Copyscape

Found a useful utility for finding plagiarism: Copyscape. --jonon 09:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Families of mirrors

There is a group of mirrors with a distinctive ending:

The contents of this article are licensed from Wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. How to see transparent copy

The HTML code says:

The contents of this article are licensed from <a href="javascript:jumpUrl('gro.aidepikiw.www//:ptth');">Wikipedia.org</a> under the <br/><a href="/copyright.html#gnu">GNU Free Documentation License</a>. How to view <a href="/copyright.html#transparent">transparent copy</a>

I particularly like backward "gro.aidepikiw.www". Examples include arthistoryclub [15], bigpedia [16], carluvers [17], gardeningdaily [18], singaporemoms [19], and there are many more --Henrygb 02:41, 7 December 2005 (UTC)