Wikipedia's Content Ripped Off More Egregiously Than Usual 284
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.
S[cp]ammer alert? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Interlibrary loan latency; standard dictionaries (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't even a copy (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Anonymous coward (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is perfect! (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Remote Loading/Leeching (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Anonymous coward (Score:2, Interesting)
- RG>
Re:Not a surprise to me... (Score:4, Interesting)
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:This is perfect! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Anonymous coward (Score:1, Interesting)
In 6th grade I got an "F" on a school photography project because my teacher claimed I never turned anything, since she didn't have it. I claimed she lost it but, of course, lost that argument.
My grade was changed later when the picture was "found": as our school's entry in the County art faire.
That was when I realized teachers were idiots.
Re:Anonymous coward (Score:5, Interesting)
Lazy script kiddies (Score:2, Interesting)
Throw in a MediaWiki parser and you have your own lightweight mirror. Every page has a link back to the original Wikipedia entry.
Not so surprisingly a 933Mhz system can't handle Wikipedia. But it can handle my version.
This setup also works on GoDaddy.
BTW, step 2 is "Ads"
Step 1: find a pile of free information on the net and host it
Step 2: put ads on it
Step 3: profit!
Script kiddies like to skip step 1 because they're too lazy to find a way to make the pile of information easily managable with limited resources.
Re:This is perfect! (Score:2, Interesting)
Personally, I have some faith in the "marketplace of ideas", but can't forget John Stuart Mill, who not only talked about the "tyranny of the majority" but also insisted that free discourse is only a means to an end -- someone with a wrong idea must come to understand *why* it's wrong, someone with the right idea must understand why that one's right.
What if language itself is biased?
Re:This is perfect! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is perfect! (Score:3, Interesting)
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* [youtube.com]. 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
Re:in related news, Quadraginta is an ass (Score:0, Interesting)
because copyright is the only reason copyleft is necessary.
who cares if its possible anymore if its no longer necessary?