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.

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!

Dupe

[Lev13than]

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

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: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.

Let me guess...

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

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

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?!

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. :(

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!

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."

Circular Reference

[s7uar7]

If someone references e-wikipedia.net in an article on Wikipedia will the internet collapse in on itself?

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

Re:Dupe

[bugnuts]

CowboyNeal has a goatee

You spelled that wrong, and forgot the .cx

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:Dupe

[Rogerborg]

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

Re:Don't log in..

[Repton]

I tried that, but my bank account details failed the notability criteria..

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:This is perfect!

[Nar Matteru]

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.

{{fact}}

Re:News for nerds, stuff that matters

[eloki]

And then the site got started :)

Re:Anonymous coward

[PhxBlue]

How do we know you didn't write that piece on self-plagiarism? :)

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:OED

[thedrx]

I got my spelling of time as "tyme" from the full edition.

Another mystery solved. You take away all the magic from me :(