Wikipedia talk:Mirrors and forks/Archive 4

The Witran Project
Hi. We have recently started http://witran.org, which is a fork of WP designed to provide useful translations. We want to do this right. Could someone look at our site and let us know what we need to do to be fully compliant? I'm working on it. I just don't want to miss anything. My email is jkginpdx at gmail. 76.115.64.22 (talk) 03:53, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Mirrors not respecting GFDL
Can someone check these out (linking to Toronto as a reference article):

Delhigrid and Vsax

I'll add more if and when I find them. Mind matrix  21:10, 17 April 2006 (UTC)


 * And two more, obviously run by the same person/group: MyNiche and silvertopics. Mind  matrix  21:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Some more: 3g.co.nz and Bvio (this is from an old archive, it seems). Mind  matrix  01:49, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

bad mirror: encyclopedia.vestigatio.com
I don't know exactly how to report this, and the rules seem a bit long, so I'll just mention it here: No mention of Wikipedia or GFDL, every page claims "©2006 Vestigatio". Melchoir 10:44, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
 * http://encyclopedia.vestigatio.com/
 * You can help by adding an entry of it. Thanks. -- Jared A. Hunt 02:01, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Mirroring wikipedia namespace
Help.com is mirroring ( under the correct GFDL licence ) at least Miscellany for deletion -> []. very wierd thing for them to do, could this be an accident or is this just a result of webcrawlers ? Peripitus (Talk) 02:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * No, they downloaded the database dump at some point and is running it. -- Jared A. Hunt 02:01, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, they're definitely live-mirroring/screen-scraping. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Quickseek.com is mirroring, they claim copyright, no credits given, framed by ads
Like Melchoir (two above), I'm not clear how to report (yes, I know there is a description which is clear to others): Quickseek.com is putting forward Wikipedia pages as its own copyright for commercial gain; the format is as for example "Advocate-QuickSeek Encyclopedia" which is a ripoff of [Advocate], with a cheeky claim that all material is copyright of Quickseek and is not to be reproduced without their permission. 82.41.229.75 09:24, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You can help by adding an entry of it. Thanks. -- Jared A. Hunt 02:02, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Welsh nationalism
Please see this breach of WP:FORK, at the Welsh nationalism Redirect. --Mais oui! 18:44, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Improperly used screenshot of wikipedia article
The following URL appears to be using an edited/modified screenshot of the wikipedia's Space Needle article and appears to be in violation of both Wikipedia's GFDL and the photographer's Creative Commons license under which the article's image is licensed. There is no attribution, inclusion of the licensing terms, etc., etc. http://labs.live.com/photosynth/whatis/smartphotos.html

I posted a similar notice on Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems and Talk:Space Needle. A reply to the former article recommended I post here. I am not a contributor to the article in question or on wikipedia logos or anything (thus I'm not a copyright or trademark holder), so I don't think there's anything I can do here, but I wanted to point this out for others to address. I've already contacted the photographer via Flikr whose image was included on the wiki page. --205.201.53.207 20:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Mass Live Mirror, GFDL violation, webspam Problem
Hello,

in the last days I am finding a lot of sites, evidently from the same people, who are using LIVE MIRRORs of Wikipedia and are also violating the GFDL. They have a number of sites with nonsense or semi-nonsense domain names all of which are built with similar templates and are fetching any Wikipedia page from any language version live. This is serious webspam problem, these people are parasites. I list the sites I find recently (but not linked):


 * en.bushleague.info/Special:Recentchanges
 * en.7-of-100.info/downtown-los-angeles-hotels/Special:Recentchanges
 * en.anysearchengine.info/hotel-in-niagara-falls-ontario/Special:Recentchanges
 * en.blogservices.info/Special:Recentchanges
 * en.feederpolitics.info/sony-ericson-phones/Special:Recentchanges
 * en.54of100e.info/Special:Recentchanges.html
 * en.andmoretop.info/Special:Recentchanges.html
 * en.comedypage.info/Special:Recentchanges
 * en.feederpolitics.info/Special:Recentchanges
 * en.centraltest.info/Special:Recentchanges
 * en.getsearchinformation.info/Special:Recentchanges
 * en.allrssfeeds.info/Special:Recentchanges

Replace the initial "en" with any Wikipedia language version, e.g. "ja".

I am reporting these sites to the wikitech-l list as I find them, and admins are sometimes blocking them, but I think this is a larger problem needing serious attention. Wikiwatcher 23:58, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

How to sign letter when contacting non-complying sites
When contacting a mirroring site that does not comply with GFDL requirements, should I sign my email with my Wikipedia user name, or my real-life name? What has been people's experience? what are the pros and cons? --InfoCan 20:51, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

can anyone make a profit off of us?
I'm a bit confused about why Wikipedia is allowing this. It seems that we are doing all this work to write articles, and some other person is making profit off of it by mirroring it on their site with ads. Are there any restrictions at all? As an extreme example, could a hate group or a terrorist group fund themselves by selling printed copies of Wikipedia? It seems that if our articles are making money, that money go to the Wikimedia Foundation. What is Wikimedia's logic behind this policy? --Arctic Gnome 21:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * So long as they comply with the GFDL, other people can do what they want, including making money. Some call this freedom. --Henrygb 23:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * That makes editing feel a bit less meaningful, especially for new users. Spending hours upon hours of your free time writing "a free encyclopedia for anyone to use" sounds a lot better than spending hours upon hours of your free time writing "a encyclopedia that will make some random person you don't know rich".  --Arctic Gnome 00:18, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
 * It's free as in freedom. I feel much better because Wikipedia is under the GFDL.  Among other things, it means no one will ever have to pay (or see ads) to use Wikipedia.  If the Wikimedia Foundation ever started charging or showing ads, someone could create a gratis fork.  The fact that Wikipedia is free also means people can sell CDs or printed copies to those without Internet access (they might not be able to do this if charging wasn't allowed).  Also, since people can create as many mirrors or data dumps as they want, the content of Wikipedia will never die out the way some sites have. Superm401 - Talk 04:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If wikipedia wasn't under the GFDL then i guess wikimedia would own copyright to all the content and so in theory could one day decide to plaster adds on wikipedia and make themselves billions from the work and donations of others, therefore i support the freedom. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 3.14 etc (talk • contribs).

coolestmatter.info
Firstly, allow me to apologise for not adding this straight into the list. I am awful at following those kinds of style (and also I don't know the info for all the fields mentioned on the main project page), so I figure if I just mention it here, hopefully it will be added by someone else, or maybe it's already been in there and since been removed, or something.

http://www.coolestmatter.info/

I found this site a little moment ago when doing a Google search for a word that only exists both on my userpage on here, and on one other site relating to me on the internet (at deviantART), and it seems that my userpage has been mirrored on coolestmatter.info, in a peculiar form, right down at the very bottom of the page in a little box, below the "More interesting resources" notice. It does the same with the Wikipedia article on most other pages (or all, I haven't checked all pages). It seems that all references to Wikipedia, Wikimedia, and most other Wikimedia projects have been changed to the word "Database" (apart from in the URLs for the relevant articles, which are copied over intact), though some still remain unchanged. See http://www.coolestmatter.info/Database_Database, for examples.
 * Database's sister projects


 * Database is hosted by the Database Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other projects:
 * Database Dictionary and thesaurus    Database Free-content news     Wikiquote Collection of quotations     Wikibooks Free ::textbooks and manuals     Wikispecies Directory of species     Wikisource Free-content library     Wikiversity Free learning ::materials and activities     Database Shared media repository     Meta-Wiki Database project coordination

It even contains all the categories. As mentioned previously, Userpages seem to be transferred over, as do talk pages ( http://www.coolestmatter.info/Talk:Wikipedia ), Wikipedia pages ( http://www.coolestmatter.info/Wikipedia:Verifiability ), Portals ( http://www.coolestmatter.info/Portal:Culture ), among others, probably. The realm of images seems to be mirrored over, but "." seems to be substituted for " ". So therefore, http
 * //www.coolestmatter.info/Image:Example.png shows the following:


 * Image:Example png


 * No file by this name exists; you can upload it.

Interestingly, clicking the words "upload it" (all links are intact)goes to http://www.coolestmatter.info/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=Example_png, but only up until the / after info is actually recognised, so that is a mirror of the Wikipedia article on W.

At the bottom of every page is the text "Copyright © coolestmatter.info".

What happens next? Did I miss something out? Was this not necessary? I've added this page (as well as /ABC) to my watchlist, so let me know if possible. --Dreaded Walrus 09:27, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
 * You're in the right place, and we do like to have all mirrors listed. However, it appears that the site is no longer using Wikipedia content, but just randomly generated junk.  Let me know if I'm wrong. Normally we would archive it, but I guess that's not necessary since there was never an entry. Superm401 - Talk 05:39, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems you are partially correct. I checked a few pages on there, and the Wikipedia content was no longer there, and so I was in the process of typing up a response here saying it was gone. However, if you go to the following URL:


 * http://www.coolestmatter.info/Wikipedia, and scroll right down, once the page has fully loaded (it loads in stages, it seems), and you should see something like the following, just below where it says "More Interesting Resources":
 * I have just reloaded that page multiple times now, in Firefox, and sometimes the content from Wikipedia appears, and sometimes the following appears:
 * " could not open XML input http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=Wikipedia&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss "
 * So it appears that on some occasions it uses information from Wikipedia, but other times it tries to use a Google blogsearch result. Does this still qualify? I've refreshed that particular page 10 times now, and 4 out of those 10 it has used Wikipedia content, 6 out of those 10 has been the invalid blogsearch thing. --Dreaded Walrus 06:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I've just tried it with a few other pages, and it seems to be the case for those, too.
 * http://www.coolestmatter.info/ham
 * http://www.coolestmatter.info/Jesus
 * http://www.coolestmatter.info/YouTube
 * They all seem to randomly switch between the failed XML, and the Wikipedia content, and it's about even odds for them to choose either. It seems to be 50/50. --Dreaded Walrus 06:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Of course it qualifies. Whenever it displays Wikipedia content, it must comply with the license.  The page isn't loading for me at all, now.  Feel free to file an entry, though. Superm401 - Talk 07:45, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I have found two more sites. I haven't looked at them in-depth, but the Medlibrary.org MedWiki, at http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/ seems to contain Wikipedia content. The front page of Medlibrary.org seems to suggest it is medical information only that is being used, yet, for example, Jimbo Wales' userpage is mirrored on there, as is my own, and probably many others. ( http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/User:Jimbo_Wales ) The other site found is http://www.referenceencyclopedia.com/. Examples of pages include http://www.referenceencyclopedia.com/?title=Wikipedia and http://www.referenceencyclopedia.com/?title=User:Jimbo%20Wales. Sorry, again, for not adding these directly to the list, but I am awful at filling out forms, which is similar to this. --Dreaded Walrus 10:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Foreign Pages
Do you think we should handle mirrors that don't copy from English Wikipedia? It kind of seems like we should pass those on to the language versions that are copied from. Superm401 - Talk 05:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Semi-aside:Alerted by email by SG (and snooping following the back and forth user talk posts) reached the project page following this, so find the 'form' given and page intro doesn't say where the given form is used and applied. So suggest some editing fixups for context and backlinks, whatever applies. Cheers! // Fra nkB 18:52, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Spamming Wikipedia with links to mirrored articles
From working with WikiProject Spam, I frequently see spammers adding links to ad-rich sites that are nothing but Wikipedia mirrors.

I've opened a discussion on the topic at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam. It seems like there are synergies between what people here are doing here and what the anti-spam volunteers are doing. Please feel free to join in the discussion there.

Observations, questions and suggestions:
 * 1) I encourage you to consider adding linksearch to the standard form, Template:Wikipedia mirror, used here to list mirror sites. This would produce a clickable link to the Special:Search web links results page for that domain. Users could either track down the resulting list of links themselves or report the possible spam problem at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam
 * 2) I think violation of our copyright should be automatic grounds for adding a domain to the Foundation-wide link-blacklist at m:Talk:Spam blacklist. First, our guidelines specificly prohibit linking to sites that violate anyone's copyright. Second, such links are probably going to have been deliberately spammed in bad faith >>90% of the time. Is such blacklisting already being done or does something need to happen to start the ball rolling? Note that there is an appeals process for getting off the blacklist, so any mistakes can be rectified.
 * 3) Inter-project cooperation: it seems this is likely an area of interest for all projects in all languages. Is there any cooperation, perhaps on Meta as there is with the spam blacklist?
 * 4) Shadowbot is loaded with problematic domains that have not yet become a severe enough problem to warrant blacklisting; it reverts suspicious link additions and cautions the editor. This bot is another potential resource to consider. --A. B. (talk) 15:59, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Linking to mirrors
"When posting links, make sure you include and  around the links so that search engines don't cache or index them". Does this still apply now that nofollow is automatic? &mdash; Feezo (Talk) 21:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Not a mirror, but a paper using Wikipedia materials
How do we deal with the GFDL-noncompliant use of one or several articles? Conscious 18:12, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Confusing mirror
I found a site located at http://en.wikipedia.b4d.pl/wiki/Main_Page a very confusing mirror of Wikipedia. The website is in fact a near perfect mirror of Wikipedia, in the sense that apart from the domain, there is hardly anything different between Wikipedia and the site. One difference that I could find was that since it can only fork content, and not push content, nothing happens when you click the "Save page" button. There is nothing wrong I could find with what they are doing, but since they don't have an identity of their own, it is difficult to enlist them in the mirrors and forks record. Can anyone help? — Ambuj Saxena (☎) 11:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * List it under "b4d.pl" - right now it seems to be carrying changes up to 15:54 today --Henrygb 21:23, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * On a second look, I find that the website is blatantly infringing on the copyrights of the Wikimedia foundation by using Wikipedia and Wikimedia logos without any express permission. I think we need to take on the issue with their web-master. However, we would face one issue while doing it. Since it copies everything, there is no identity of its own, and thus there are no contact details. — Ambuj Saxena (☎) 07:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Now redirects to http://no-va.pl/ -- &oelig; &trade; 22:42, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Organization using Wikipedia material
Check this out - - currently they have a paper about ENP on the front page. The summary uses the Wikipedia ENP map. but has "(c) Copyright CEPS" below it. Shouldn't they place "(c) Wikipedia" instead??? Alinor 06:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


 * It actually uses the old (pre Bulgaria/Romania accession) version, but and  do indeed seem to be the same apart from scale. --Henrygb 23:59, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Can I actually get a clarification on this? Copyright states "The Wikimedia Foundation does not own copyright on Wikipedia article texts and illustrations. " FDL 4.E states "Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices." whenever modifying texts.  What is an 'appropriate' copyright notice for any modifications? -- Monkeywaffles 10:13, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Just a comment
Is it just me, or is anyone else disturbed by the fact that so many mirrors seem to be "Pharmaceutical Encyclopedia" or something else medically related? :P Ab  e  g92   We are all Hokies!  09:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Very Confused
I'm confused...when is it okay for these sites to remove these links. I mean if you have instances in which content has changed so dramatically that it's no longer representative of the original article, shouldn't a simple link to the history of the page and the GFDL suffice? --Itripblindkids 01:15, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Website hosting fair-use images
Although it may not technically be a mirror, but I found a website that is hosting fair-use images from Wikipedia. I know that this isn't going against GDFL policies, but I'm sure it does waste unnecessary server resources. The website is http://www.freewebs.com/u2city/, and I found it at User:CRBR, who claims that it is his own website. – Dream out loud (talk) 06:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

spammy fork at mirrorpedia.com
http://www.mirrorpedia.com/wiki/Special:Recentchanges

It looks like they loaded the top copies of our articles into their own wiki, which has since been left open to spambots..

It's non-compliant with GFDL, as it has neither article history nor a link back to the original articles. --Versageek 14:12, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

simplifiedwiki.com
another non-GFDL compliant spammy site: http://www.simplifiedwiki.com. Looks to have a local copy which is editable, but no page histories, no link back to Wikipedia.

I'm guessing there are tons of these sites.. :( --Versageek 14:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

link-ex.net
These guys are GFDL compliant, but they are hot linking our images. If you click edit on the image page, it will open an edit window on en.wp, and if you click the image on the image page, it opens a file on en.wp.


 * Image Page on link-ex.net --Versageek 14:35, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Wiikiipedia


I found this site that is a complete copy of Wikipedia. http://www.wiki-pedia.pl/en/wiki/ It has ads all over it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheOtherSiguy (talk • contribs) 23:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

YASFWF
Yet another spam-filled Wikipedia fork. Someone should take appropriate steps. --69.12.157.118 20:20, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Correction ?
I received this message on my talk page, and I'm not sure what to do with it. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 12:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

about Psihologie Solutii psihologice
Hy! I am webmaster for Psihologie Solutii psihologice http://grajdaru.3x.ro. About Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/Pqr topic on "Psihologie" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/Pqr#Psihologie

I made the modification and now on all my pages with wikipedia content is a notice about copyright and GFLD license. Contact email: oxus.e107user@gmail.com

Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.102.117.1 (talk) 09:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Sandy Georgia (Talk) 12:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * That's great! There's only one other thing you need to do for full compliance; the text of the GFDL you link to should be stored on the same site as the material (that is, it should be accessible at something like http://grajdaru.3x.ro/GFDL.txt.) Feezo (Talk) 14:48, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Feezo. So, I need to e-mail this person and tell him/her to do that, and if s/he does, then do I remove the entry from the Mirrors and forks page?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I sent a link to this section to the e-mail address above; hopefully the webmaster will responde here, as I've had no other contact with him/her. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I am the webmaster for http://grajdaru.3x.ro. I read your mail and your post here. Now in the footer of my page is a link to GFDL accessible from -  -. You can verify all this on my site. Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.121.69.85 (talk) 16:32, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Psihologie appears to be in full compliance now. I've updated Mirrors_and_forks/Pqr. Thank you for complying! Feezo (Talk) 04:39, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Another report on violations
I found the following sites that violate the GFDL. Don't have time to follow the steps on the w:Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks, especially since it would make sense to coordinate efforts than have many volunteers do the exact same thing so here they are: -- Trödel 22:51, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
 * mbceo.com
 * suprari.com
 * gov-certificates.co.uk

Layout problem
Not sure if this is the place to report it, but Mirrors_and_forks/Abc doesn't seem to be displaying properly (in Firefox 2.x at least). The white background isn't showing so the page background is showing through. Seems like a div tag didn't get closed, as all of the other sub-pages are displaying properly. - Koweja (talk) 06:04, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Can't this site please be in some kind of violation?
For example, see http://www.cassiopedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Wikipedia. I really, really, hope no one gets suckered in to donating. Rocket000 (talk) 06:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * GFDL section 4I:

Cassiopedia's history sections (example) remove the contribution history. Feezo (Talk) 08:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Cool, can we do anything? It's the donation thing that really bothers me. Ads are one thing, but scamming people like that is just wrong. Rocket000 (talk) 20:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Take the steps outlined in Mirrors and forks. Since this infringement is apparently the work of the site's operators, be prepared to send a DMCA takedown notice. Feezo (Talk) 21:30, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok I'll look in to it. Thank you very much for your help. Cheers, Rocket000 (talk) 00:27, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Plagiarism of a paragraph by The Politico
The Politico, a fairly prominent political blog, plagiarized the Alford plea article a couple months ago. See its talk page: Talk:Alford_plea. I sent them a comment and an email about it, but never got a response. Anything to do about it?? ǝɹʎℲxoɯ ( contrib ) 05:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

How does this work?
I'm a little confused - what does one do when one finds a copy of a WP article on another website where the article/site is not crediting WP?

Based on the article history, it appears that Heritage Minutes was copied onto this site from a version between here and here. The history indicates it wasn't copied into WP, it was copied from WP.

So what now? Should I personally be doing something? Will someone else look at this? Do they need more info? I've looked at a few more random articles from the site in question and found nothing more but haven't looked in detail. Wondering what the next step is. Thanks. Franamax (talk) 09:44, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Sites that use individual articles
(CC to Wikipedia talk:GFDL Compliance)

Hi, this (and GFDL Compliance) appear to be places to report sites that fork Wikipedia content, but what about a web site that only uses a couple of articles without attribution? Should they be mentioned here as well? (if you want to look at the specifics that I'm looking at, please see this and this. Thanks, Deathphoenix ʕ 19:51, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

old user page
This site [http://wikipedia.cas.ilstu.edu illegally replicated my old user page from Jun 2005, which I had deleted from Wikipedia later in October 2005. I have not linked my user page, but if I do you will see that there is no notification, attribution, or license reproduced whatsoever. They have reproduced my name that was on my user page at the time and I don't want that. How can I get that replicated user page deleted? I'm not the only one, just type in a user name from June 2005. I don't know how to contact the owner of that website but I will take legal action if I have to. 76.208.190.96 (talk) 09:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


 * You've probably found this out already, but I figured I'd mention it here anyway. The contact information for websites in the ilstu.edu domain is:


 * Illinois State University
 * 3500 Telecommunications
 * Normal, IL 61790


 * Most likely the site was put up by a student, in which case they could get suspended or expelled if you report them. I wouldn't do that if I were you; however, the college of arts and sciences has an ombudsman who can assist with dispute resolution, and hopefully she can resolve this informally:


 * Dr. Sabine Loew, Ombudsman
 * Illinois State University
 * College of Arts and Sciences
 * Campus Box 4100
 * Normal, IL 61790-4100


 * Thanks.
 * 69.140.152.55 (talk) 23:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

http://peti.pl/wiki
This site seems to be siphoning off Wikipedia pages live. They aren't displaying the Wikipedia logo, but every page says they're Wikipedia. If you hover over any link, it says it's artursin.net-elite.pl, but their links go to the peti.pl pages. Corvus cornix talk  19:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I just discovered that they're not displaying the edit histories. If you click on a History tab, you get taken back to the Main page. Corvus cornix talk  19:43, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Amusing
Here is a news site, with some phrases in common, though massaged to be a bit different...from St Trinian's School...(wasn't sure where to put this) Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:11, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

TheFree4all
The website TheFree4all.com is displaying Wikipedia articles without mentioning the article's source or any GFDL notice. — BradV 00:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

BBC Sound Index
The BBC's Sound Index project is using parts of Wikipedia articles for the information about artists in its database - e.g. this article is a copy of the lead for the article Coldplay, with no apparent GFDL link or copyright notice. I have sent a copyright warning to the BBC, but I am just checking that the BBC & Wikimedia don't have some sort of special deal, or whether it actually is GFDL-licenced and I'm just missing something? Qwghlm (talk) 13:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

non-compliance process
Too slow. Is it permitted for me to send a DMCA takedown notice either immediately or if no response to a letter or e-mail after 5 calendar days? Also, I assume that copyright registration is required before one can send a DMCA takedown notice – is the Foundation's registration of copyright in Wikipedia sufficient for this purpose? 69.140.152.55 (talk) 05:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The Foundation doesn't hold the copyright on your articles &mdash; you do. No registration is necessary. You are therefore perfectly entitled to send DMCA takedown notices to sites that violate your copyright, as long as you take care to distinguish your work from that of others. See Copyrights for more information. Feezo (Talk) 09:18, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Do entries here get routinely processed?
I have made several entries here of sites I have found randomly on the net, but they do not seem to get actioned by anyone, eg Zoo-Hoo. Do they just sit here forever or will something happen eventually?  Sp in ni ng  Spark  21:37, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Actioned by whom? Do you mean they mirrors don't respond to notices, or that no one has sent them a letter? If the latter, take a look at the thread above and send your own letter if applicable. Best, -- B figura (talk) 21:49, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Finding the ISP
I am trying to find and contact the ISP of a site (SMSO.net) to which I have sent a string of requests that they comply with the GFDL but without any response at all. The trouble is I am not really sure what I am doing here. A Whois enquiry established that the name is registered through GoDaddy.com. But also the IP is 207.58.186.173. Doing a Whois on the IP gets Servint Corp in Virginia. So is the ISP GoDaddy.com or Servint or someone else altogether?  Sp in ni ng  Spark  12:31, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Godaddy is just the registrar, follow the IP address to servint, they're the ones responsible for the server. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs (st47) 19:31, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

New mirror, but not following the rules
This is a mirror of the Scarsdale, New York article, but it isn't following the rules of the GFDL as far as I can tell. Can someone do what ever needs to be done, as I don't have the time nor the impetus to? Thanks in advance. Deamon138 (talk) 01:32, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Knol
Knol (in addition to hosting GFDL content from wikipedia without attribution) appears to be allowing users to embed wikimedia hosted images. Can we disable that from our end ? Megapixie (talk) 10:25, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Stolen Text
This website ripped off the text for the article from The Road. http://www.wildaboutmovies.com/movies/TheRoadTheMovie-TheRoadMovie.php. Wildaboutmovies.com doesn't cite or disclose that it is a rip-off of the wikipedia article. I am not sure what to do about it, so I figured that someone here can take the next step. --UncleFather (talk) 03:03, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

"Wikipedia Reflection Script"
I found a webpage ( http://www.vacilando.org/index.php?x=7065 ) that offers a script to remote-load Wikipedia content. 71.200.39.246 (talk) 18:21, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

scholastic.schoolnet.co.uk
Appears to use freepedia as its source -- but no attribution (you need to look at the browser to see how it is redirected). I suggest it be added to the list of mirrors, or ought it be added as an alternate for freepedia instead? Thanks! Collect (talk) 18:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC) (fixed ref)

Scraping Wikipedia in real time
http://www.realtech.co.za/realwiki.php is scraping Wikipedia in real time. Is that allowed? I put up an AfD, and went to look for information on Google about the article's initial creator, and found that User's User ID on RealTech. When I did further digging, I found that my AfD was already on the site. It appears to be scraping Wikipedia in real time instead of doing a download. Is that an acceptable drain on Wikipedia resources? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Another non-comply
http://www.quotation-marks.com/emphasis_and_irony.php

Notes at the bottom that it is GFDL'd, but does not note authorship. 24.78.192.142 (talk) 21:27, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

GFDL violation
This website copied parts of John Paulson. However, I am not quite sure what to do now. Could somebody please handle this? --bender235 (talk) 21:56, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Not sure where to file this one
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/NewDestinyComics -- The articles listed there all seem to be copy and pastes of various comic-related Wikipedia articles. Comicbookmovie.com appears to just let people create their own blogs, and this one was created by New Destiny Comics to bring in eyeballs to promote their separate website, which appears to want to scame people into sending in art in some contest where they get to print all the free art or something. DreamGuy (talk) 12:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism engrains itself
Didnt see this mentioned on the page but i think its worth a thought. Vandalism in wikipedia especially the sneaky hoax kind, tends to find its way onto the mirror sites permeantly based on the way its set up. Noticed quite a few examples of this on mirror sites. But its worth cautioning these companies against blanketly mirroring some wikipeda pages.Ottawa4ever (talk) 18:56, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Updating
As noted, this area needs major rework to deal with the recent license transition. While "most" text content is now dual-licensed, moving forward enough content will be CC-BY-SA-only that most re-users will have to choose that license. That means the heuristic at GFDL Compliance, and the current evaluations, will become mostly obsolete.

Of course, there is nothing to stop sites that currently have only GFDL content from simply never updating to content posted after 6/15/09. Or, they could selectively choose articles without CC-BY-SA-only content. Either way, we can't enforce the CC-BY-SA against these sites. I have thus added a only-gfdl option to Wikipedia mirror. If this is set to 1 (i.e. non-blank), it means the site is using only GFDL content. Like all sites, these need to be periodically re-checked to see if the situation changes. Gradually, these "anomalies" should disappear naturally.

However, most sites will soon (if they haven't already) include CC-BY-SA only content. Most of these will do so incorrectly at first (many will automatically continue to claim, falsely, that everything is GFDL). And like always, some will be long-term violators. Either way, we need new procedures and boiler-plate letters. I have started to do this here, at CC-BY-SA Compliance, and at Standard CC-BY-SA violation letter. Superm401 - Talk 13:41, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Is this a mirror?
Should this site be added to the list? The URL is http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/ — an example: Bombay (cat). Whatever404 (talk) 01:16, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Removing outdated material
Can we remove old sites that no longer exist (have been dead for years), or are parked domains? It would clean up these pages quite a lot. — This, that, and the other [talk] 07:17, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed, we need to do a thorough update of this list. Clearly no one has gone back to recheck these sites, many are now long gone. -- &oelig; &trade; 22:47, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Please separate mirrors from forks
They are not the same thing. It should be possible to see a list of forks of Wikipedia and what they're trying to accomplish without having to navigate through a huge alphabetical list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.66.135 (talk) 22:48, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

72 vanity unfinished Wiki
The page http://www.72vanityunfinished.co.cc/wiki.php?q=H.N._Swanson credits its content to H.N. Swanson, but adds the statement "© 2010 http://www.72vanityunfinished.co.cc/ ". See also User talk:Cnilep/Archive/01 March 2010. Cnilep (talk) 21:49, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

List needs to be updated
Not sure who is maintaining this list but I've been finding a lot of entries that have changed and no longer host Wikipedia content. What is to be done with these? Do they get moved to Mirrors and forks/Archive or should we just remove them entirely from the list? -- &oelig; &trade; 22:45, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Fair Use vs Violation
Say someone makes a blog and posts the entire text of several WP pages plus screenshots, and their purpose is criticism. They provide links to the pages, but do not mention the GFDL or properly credit Wikipedia beyond the link. Say they do the same with off-wiki "all rights reserved" pages. Violation or fair use? Obviously no one can offer legal advice, but how is this usually handled here? PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) 23:08, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

RationalWiki
Please see here and here. Huw Powell (talk) 01:15, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, fair enough, now please see here. PCHS-NJROTC  (Messages) 02:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Has nothing to do with this section. Now please gently go into that good night, my dear concern troll.  You have repaired some serious damage to the fabric of the internet, your job is done. Huw Powell (talk) 03:07, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Book, not a website
I've just added Mirrors and forks/Ghi. It's a book (viewable at Google Books), it is not a website. I was not sure how or where else to report something like this. See also Talk:Aissawa. Thanx, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:16, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The procedure would be pretty the same as for a website. That is, list it here (which you have done), and then someone with a copyright claim to the stolen text has to take the "legal actions." --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:43, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

reachinformation
The page http://www.reachinformation.com/define/GWR_378_Class.aspx is pretty much word-for-word identical (although it doesn't handle templates) to the article GWR 378 Class which I created entirely from printed sources. What is the procedure for getting this site marked as a mirror? -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:17, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

http://www.thefullwiki.org/
Looking at http://www.thefullwiki.org/Inferior_vena_cava_filter for example I cannot find any way in which the image of the filter (which happens to be mine) is traceable back from the article or attributed. Anyone reckon this conforms? --BozMo talk 21:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Concerns about a publisher
Hi all, I think there might be a problem with a publisher, Global Vision, effectively mirroring wikipedia; they may have published quite a large number of books which incorporate wikipedia content without attribution; and some of those books have already been cited in articles, or triggered concerns about copyvio. Please see the thread here. bobrayner (talk) 20:20, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's the same organization I mentioned in the "Book, not a website" section above (but the book in question is mentioned in your WP:RS discussion). See also Talk:Aissawa. -- Gyrofrog  (talk) 20:36, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Following on from discussion on the Reliable Sources noticeboard, the whole publisher is now listed at Mirrors and forks/Ghi. Their website lists 408 books; it would be impractical to list or check them all, but so far every one I've checked looks like an unacknowledged copy of other content; in most cases Wikipedia, in remaining cases, other sources are copied. bobrayner (talk) 22:44, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Johnson Pest Control
Johnson Pest Control copied many pages on different household pests without any attribution to Wikipedia, and, indeed, even claims their own copyright on the content.

http://www.johnsonpestcontrol.com/pest-identification/silverfish/

This is offensive to me as an author of some content in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.61.124.137 (talk) 06:06, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

neither website nor book but an app
Specifically an iphone app that I came across. The subject is the aircraft and RAF squadrons of the Battle of Britain and it uses wikipedia text content and so far as I can see the same images. The app has no credits section that I can find - save the app itself is (c) developers name. The app author has a number of other apps which from the screenshots may also be reliant on wikipedia text but at £1.19 a throw I'm not about to rush to find out. Any thoughts on how best to tackle. Is there a suggested letter to encourage reusers to comply with licence terms? So far there is a review of the app on itunes that mentions the wikipedia use without credit. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:12, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Listing a mirror
A concern has been raised via OTRS that http://wikipediasupereplicas.com/ may be mirroring Wikipedia articles without including the requisite licensing terms. Could someone confirm and add it to the list if this is indeed the case? --Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 20:06, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

OpenBuildings.com
OpenBuildings.com is reusing wikipedia content, without attribution. See, for example their page on Aston Hall vs Aston Hall. See also a blog post about the matter. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:44, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Gyan Publishing House
This publisher has been placed on the list with an incomplete template. I do not believe that every book published by this publisher is a Wikipedia mirror. Without guidance in the template, an editor has apparently taken it upon themselves to remove every use of this publisher's books from Wikipedia. However, the ref removed from Last Exit on Brooklyn could not have been derived from that Wikipedia article, the book was published in 2005 and the Wikipedia article wasn't created until 2010. The template needs to be filled out with the actual details of the situation to avoid misuse. Yworo (talk) 20:55, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The list of books is extremely long, and Gyan/Isha/Kalpaz are also known plagiarists of works other than Wikipedia. Basically, there is a clear lack of editorial control and therefore anything from those connected publishing houses is deemed to be unreliable. This has been discussed time and again at various venues, including RSN and individual article talk pages. - Sitush (talk) 21:33, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't have an issue with that, but other publishers are filled in with the data about how serious the issue is "Low/Medium/High", actions taken, etc. This should be the central source of these details, editors can't be expected to search out the (not even linked) conversations elsewhere. Yworo (talk) 22:04, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Link to this thread if you wish. It is "High" on the scale of seriousness. Tbh, I don't think that most people using Gyan or indeed any other source refer to this particular set of articles: there is a form of osmosis about these things, rightly or wrongly. Certainly, I've rarely ever looked at it & I probably do more source evaluation than most. ;) - Sitush (talk) 22:10, 4 December 2011 (UTC)