Wikipedia talk:Send in the clones

Is there any way each page a clone adopts can have built in a message to the effect that if the punters want the most up to date version they will have to look at Wikipedia? I am tracking some of the stuff I have written in recent weeks and apart from Google itself which can be fairly quick, these clones are often weeks out of date, which for fast-moving stuff is not very good.Apwoolrich 15:20, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No, we have not control over what the clones have to put on their pages. Demanding they put such a message would be called demanding an "invariant section" in the terminology of the GNU FDL. Wikipedia has no invariant sections, and can not introduce them now because it would not be backwards compatibile with previous submissions. Thus we are relying on good faith for clones to point back to Wikipedia saying "hey; these are the good guys". Unfortunately this sort of good faith is incompatible with the clones' commercial aspirations. Pcb21| Pete 15:53, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia clones and search engine ratings

Originally at the village pump

I've started a page at Wikipedia:Send in the clones to discuss this. Any comments? -- The Anome 14:06, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Say what you will, but two wrongs don't make a right. Much of what passes as SEO is really just plain Googlebombing. If you're talking about real SEO, that'd involve things like correct page structure, etc. which I believe we already have. Besides, if we play dirty, there's a chance Google will later demote us in search rankings. Overall, optimise only if its legal, and doesn't involve some dirty trick. Johnleemk | Talk 14:13, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I wonder if there are any problems for the google crawler going through our site. I usually check for the google rating of some of the articles I have created. For example monthon [1] it recently had the article in the top 10 of google hits, before it had the link only without a cached version (and much below top 10), and now it seems to have disappeared again. But the mirrors are all present. Does the google bot run into any traffic throttleling, or the measures to block mirroring by sucking all pages? It's of course impossible to guess what is really going on at google... andy 18:25, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

We've had this problem ever since Google redid its PageRank criteria in order, according to them, cut down on Googlebombing. If anything the opposite seems to have happened. But I would not push Google on this issue until we have a good handle on our finances/server situation. --mav 07:53, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Google bombs work

Apparently some Wikipedians have already engaged in the questionable (at best) practice of googlebombing Wikipedia entries to the top. See "Accomplished Googlebombs", or do a google search for "Jew". anthony (see warning) 12:22, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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Discussion of whether or not it was Wikipedians that did the googlebombing: anthony (see warning) 14:19, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It wasn't Wikipedians who did that googlebombing. Pcb21| Pete 12:50, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Why do you think that? anthony (see warning) 12:59, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Do some research before you make allegations. Long story short: the Jew Watch website used to be top, some Jewish people didn't like this, and thought our Jew article was a decent alternative. Ambi 13:02, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I stand by my allegation that apparently this was done by Wikipedians. Do you have any evidence that the people who did it weren't Wikipedians? If so I'd like to see it, and we should add it to the googlebomb article, because right now the article makes it sound like it was done by Wikipedians. anthony (see warning) 13:06, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Remove Jew Watch launched a petition to "get Google.com to remove jewwatch.com from their search engine.". Other people have tried to have different sites rank higher for the term Jew . An ADL director stated :

Jonathan Bernstein, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, noted that one can stumble across plenty of Holocaust denial Web sites by simply typing "Holocaust" into Google.

"Some responsibility for this needs to rest on our own shoulders and not just a company like Google. We have to prepare our kids for things they come across" on the Internet, he said.

"This is part of the nature of an Internet world. The disadvantage is we see more of it and our kids see more of it. The advantage is, we see more of it, so we're able to respond to it. ... I'm not sure what people would want to see happen. You couldn't really ask Google not to list it."

Which is in just one article linked from Google bomb. What evidence do you have that Wikipedians had anything to do with this? Ambi 13:13, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I clarified the Googlebomb article. Pcb21| Pete 13:19, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

As did I. That article you gave doesn't say anything about whether or not Wikipedians were involved. In any case, my research on the subject shows that Daniel Sieradski (who runs Jew Watch) was the one who started the whole campaign. I have no idea whether or not he's a Wikipedian. anthony (see warning) 13:38, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm Daniel Sieradski and I run Jewschool.com, not Jew Watch (which is run by Frank Weltner) and I am an infrequent Wikipedia contributor. Mobius1ski 16:52, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

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And then the conversation breaks down into the inane: anthony (see warning) 14:15, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

About time you admit you were wrong then and apologize to me and Ambi? Pcb21| Pete 13:52, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I wasn't wrong about anything, and I certainly didn't do anything wrong against you or Ambi. Perhaps you just need to look up the word apparent: "Appearing as such but not necessarily so". anthony (see warning) 13:55, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"Do you have any evidence that the people who did it weren't Wikipedians? If so I'd like to see it..."

Sounds pretty accusatory to me... especially given that there is no discussion anywhere on Wikipedia about attempting a Googlebomb for that word, in fact no evidence any where at all that it was Wikipedian-inspired and no-one but yourself even claiming that it was. I know you like to hang on to your positions tenaciously Anthony, but sometimes it aint worth it. Pcb21| Pete 14:06, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It wasn't meant to be accusatory. I really wanted to see any evidence one way or the other. The fact that I immediately went searching for evidence I think shows that. I never claimed that it was Wikipedian-inspired. I said that seemed to be the case. I'm sorry you took my comment as accusatory. anthony (see warning) 14:13, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

A sneaky idea for page rank giving credit to authors

Ok, this is sneaky, this is awesome. Everyone's been complaining for various reasons about how many wikipedia mirrors do not link back to wikipedia's articles properly. One of the most upsetting features of this is that other websites get higher google page ranks than us.

How about this sneaky way of avoiding that. Why not automatically embed a link back to the article, somewhere in the article? It could be an automatic thing without the arrow. Most mirrors won't take the time to remove it from each article, and we'll have the link we want for the page rank. Its not at all dishonest, after all, they are required to link back.

Anyways, I just thought I'd throw it out there.

—siroχo 00:24, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

You could set a piece of code in the article that when it's viewed from en.wikipedia.org it doesn't show it. Or in some other way to not be intrusive upon our readers but still "fool" the page rank. Overall, it's a nice idea. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:30, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Before we do this, has anyone tried emailing Google? --Golbez 00:30, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

I bet someone has. I mean, it'd be like if we were looking for a phone and nobody tried looking on the hook. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:46, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

1. There is no requirement to link back in the GFDL.
2. Google doesn't get involved in these kinds of politics.
3. If this is going to be done, it has to go into the DB, and it has to go into every single row of the cur table. That's the only way it's going to get incorporated into the forks.
4. If the message is so intrusive that we must set a piece of code to hide it in en, then you should expect forks to do the same.

anthony (see warning) 00:52, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Re "google doesn't get involved in these kinds of politics" - Oh, really? Then why do they have selected providers for dictionary definitions? Why can't the same consideration be given to providers of encyclopedia entries as well? --Golbez 01:15, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

Somehow I doubt google would give a free link to an encyclopedia which can be edited by anyone in the same way they gave the link to a dictionary definition provider, which most likely cost a good deal of money. But go ahead and ask. anthony (see warning) 13:57, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There's not a requirement to link back in the GFDL, per se, but there are few practical alternatives, since they have to give credit to all original authors. I agree that Google shouldn't be involved in this at all. The message should be added to every article when the downloadable dumps are created. And if you think that they'll go out of their way to remove all these messages, especially considering it saves them the trouble of adding stuff to comply with the license, I think you underestimate the laziness of forks. Derrick Coetzee 00:57, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Linking back does not give credit to the original authors. I for one consider merely linking back to be a violation of my copyright. As for my estimation of the laziness of forks, I run a fork, and I'm not going to insert any links beyond what I already have, unless Wikipedia does the same. It's not fair to put forks on a different playing field. Wikipedia doesn't own the copyright, the individual authors do. anthony (see warning) 14:01, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm not privy to the intricacies of the PageRank system, but I wonder if a self-terminating anchor (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo" title="Wikipedia: Foo" />) in each article would do it. If not, perhaps the usual syntax with null text (<a &#x85;></a>) would. It's something to consider, anyway. Austin Hair 01:19, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

I think this is a bad idea all around. Why is it such a big deal that the higher-ranked Google hits are Wikipedia content on some other site, rather than marginally more up-to-date Wikipedia content on Wikipedia itself? It's not like we profit from users coming here rather than our mirrors (aside from the influx of new contributors - and interested potential contributors will likely find their way here anyway). Tricking search engines merely to achieve a higher page ranking is sneaky and dishonest, and I don't think Wikipedia should participate in such tactics. If we do make alterations to various meta tags, it should be to help people get relevant search results, not just to win a race to #1 Google Hit. -- Wapcaplet 02:10, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The entire point is not about page rank, the sites are supposed to link back to the articles anyway, or find some other way to provide credit to the authors. Its certainly not dishonest to encourage mirrors to follow copyright law. —siroχo 02:15, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

First of all, the sites are not supposed to link back. That's not a requirement under the GFDL. Secondly, if we want the mirrors to follow copyright law, we need to follow it ourselves. A link is fine, so long as it is a link which is paletable enough for Wikipedia to put in its own pages. A link which is meant to be added only to the forks and not to Wikipedia is not fine. anthony (see warning) 14:05, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have no view on the validity of the scheme, but my first thought is that whatever one tries to do it would not be too difficult to strip it out in an automated way, using some kind of find and replace process, though without replacing with anything. But I'm not technical, so perhaps I overestimate what can be done. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 02:30, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

Anything we do is technically alterable, but given the fact that few of our pseudo-mirrors are competent enough to even disable page editing effectively, it doesn't seem likely that they'll circumvent this—especially if the result is effected by some Mediawiki keyword present in the database but transparently filtered in editing. This is not to say that I support the idea, but I don't think it would be difficult to implement. Austin Hair 02:45, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

The mirrors which don't even disable page editing by and large are the ones which do not have a good page rank. The mirrors Wikipedia should be working with are the better ones which do take the time to create a good image. These are the mirrors which Wikipedia should want to be associated with in the first place. But these mirrors are probably also the ones who would object to being pawns in some googlebombing scheme. anthony (see warning) 14:09, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Marginally up to date? I've seen mirrors with my userpage from June or July of 2003 and with vandalism preserved for a looooong time. So, I'd like to know your definition of Marginally. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 05:54, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

apologies if i am wiki'ing poorly. anyway, there are several ways to make the self-link invisible to humans. and it doesn't matter if even 75% of the illegit forks stripped it, since the other 25% would be enough to put you at #1. please implement this suggestion. i ran into this problem today actually and did not appreciate the illegitimate mirror.

Embedding invisible links to increase pagerank directly violates google guidelines. If the parsers determine that this is being done you can expect your pagerank to go down, not up. anthony (see warning) 14:15, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Complete agreement with Anthony. If we want to boost our Google presence (and our traffic seems to be doing ok, thank you) then the only way is to talk to Google. Apparently Jimbo has some contacts there, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn if he doesn't want to do that any time soon. Pcb21| Pete 16:20, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't get how a mirror can be considered illegitimate. About the only ways somebody could violate our license are:

• forcing users to subscribe or otherwise pay to use their site
• not having a website at all

If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it. --Eequor 17:50, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Even those wouldn't really be violations. There's nothing in the GFDL saying you can't charge money for content licensed under it, and not having a website at all (say, if someone took Wikipedia and produced print versions for sale) would be fine, as long as modifiable ("transparent") versions are also made available. The only real violations I can think of would be: not giving contributors credit; relicensing under a GFDL-incompatible license. -- Wapcaplet 19:30, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I mean, having subscriptions as the only means of access. It might be possible, somehow, to provide the modifiable source in some other form, but distributing the entire database in that manner would mean lots of CDs or DVDs. --Eequor 20:48, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure what in the GFDL would preclude having subscriptions as the only means of access. anthony (see warning) 15:45, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Police the licence

I LOVE the idea of a self-linking link in each article - put it in the bit that says "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia"! Irregardless of the Google issue, it REALLY helps with ensuring mirrors have a link to attribution of authors (necessary for not violating GFDL/p*ssing us all off). Plus, it helps the Google ranking issue (big time I suspect - probably will ensure we are always no. 1). And we do need to be no. 1, for all those non-cautious people who click "I'm feeling lucky". It's a lot preferable for people to go here rather than a static or slowly updated mirror. Any "snapshop" of Wikipedia can conceivably (and probably does) have "trapped" vandalism (that is probably going to be fixed right after) - even possibly on major articles. Such things bring Wikipedia into disrepute. zoney ▓█▒ talk 13:06, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think a better idea would be to help the mirrors by making it easier for them to download the list of authors themselves. Help us by allowing us to easily determine when an article needs to be updated. A better mirror provides better exposure for Wikipedia, and this is where we should be focussing, not on sneaky googlebombing techniques designed to subvert search engines. anthony (see warning) 14:20, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

1. There is no reason to suppose that there is any more or less vandalism at the instant the snapshot is taken than at any other time.
2. The would-be mirrorer could easily strip such a link. Note that mirrorers have historically not given a toss about Wikipedia by and large. In general they obfuscate links as much as possible. Pcb21| Pete 16:13, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Pete, the problem is that on Wikipedia the vandalism is fixed quickly, but on some of the mirrors there are year-old vandalisms that still haven't been replaced. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 16:25, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but vandalism is *created* equally quickly... so although the mirrors will have *old* vandalism they won't have the new vandalism. If the amount of vandalism on WP stays roughly constant over the time, then all mirrors and this site will have the same amount. Pcb21| Pete 17:10, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think that the "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" could be a link to itself (the current article page) with a css thing for no underline and black text. Therefore it looks like a normal text. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 16:25, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That isn't in the database, though. anthony (see warning) 20:17, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It should be. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 22:37, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Seems like it'd be a pain to code, but if done it would be the best solution. anthony (see warning) 02:29, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Let's try some googlebombing. we could use the talk pages. e.g. by putting encyclopedia to try to get the top hit for encyclopedia. we could also go through all the web directoryes and sort them out. Dunc_Harris|☺ 21:54, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Rather than attacking other websites for copying our content, Wikipedia should be grateful to them for making the encyclopedia ubiquitously visible. How do mirrors threaten Wikipedia? They are not wikis. They are completely dependent upon Wikipedia for their content. Their response to criticism of inaccuracies in "their" content must be to immediately blame Wikipedia, and if they have any interest in self-preservation, they will tell the critic how to fix the error.

Wikipedia provides a valuable service for free to anyone, with almost no restrictions on how anyone might use the content. Don't be surprised when everyone copies Wikipedia in every way possible. It is extremely short-sighted, ingrateful, selfish, greedy, and juvenile to suggest restrictions for our mirrors. --Eequor 18:15, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No - the GFDL does not mean they can grab all the content, and only list "Wikipedia" as the source. The authors of the text must be listed (providing a link to the "real" article with history is one solution for them). I for one object to my work being NICKED. zoney ▓█▒ talk 18:44, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It isn't "your work", and you implicitly gave permission for the entire world to use and modify, in almost any way, anything you submitted to Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:Standard GFDL violation letter for the two requirements Wikipedia places on mirrors. --Eequor 19:16, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It isn't "your work" - Dead wrong. You retain the copyright on it, even if you give others a license to use it (in this case, the GFDL). Zoney is quite correct - the GFDL says "You may copy and distribute the Document... provided that... the

copyright notices... are reproduced in all copies". In our case, we have a fairly lenient intrepretation -- we allow them to link to our article, which contains the page history. If mirrors want to be GFDL compliant, they have to link to the source article. →Raul654 00:47, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

You're both wrong. As you said, I retain the copyright on my work. So your "lenient interpretation [sic]" is meaningless. Linking to the source is neither necessary nor sufficient for GFDL compliance. And since there are no copyright notices in the original, there is no need to reproduce any in the copies. anthony (see warning) 02:19, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Exactly Eequor, we require the clones to link back to the original article, to provide the credit for our work, just as the page you linked to states: "we'd like to point out that when using content from Wikipedia you should include a link back to the source Wikipedia article." (I suppose that if they bothered to make their own list of authors, that would be fine too, but I've never seen any citation of wikipedia that listed all authors of any article). —siroχo 00:32, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

Aside from the politics of it all, it really is a shame that the world gets this free dictionary crap as 7th on a Google search for Kelly Holmes when our (now) far better article doesn't make it into the top 100. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 17:59, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

So, am I right in thinking this is non-compliant... I wrote all, or the overwhelming majority, of our article David Quantick, which is now available here at something called Wikiverse.org. The site's home page links clearly to us, but not the article page itself. There appears to be no advertising, so I wonder if it's a mirror - but then, if it is, I wonder why they redesign the look of it.

I've gone and read the copyright stuff, but it's too confusing for me - I'll probably understand it much better if someone can clarify based on this example. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 22:25, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

Bod, each article is required to link directly to the originating article (or provide the authors in a different way, technically, but thats never been done), so Wikiverse is not in compliance. —siroχo 22:31, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

No, no, no. This is not true. Linking back to the article is one way of crediting the copyright holder, but it is a bit of an odd one. There is no need to link back so long as you credit the copyright holder... 195.158.19.248 08:59, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Bod, wikiverse.org is discussed here. ←Hob 23:14, 2004 Sep 6 (UTC)

Anthony DiPierro: I've seen numerous comments from you to the effect that linking back to the WP article is not a sufficient way to credit the authors. Apparently, this is because you don't think Wikipedia's History feature serves this purpose either, and that WP itself is therefore non-GFDL-compliant. I'm sure I've missed much of this discussion, but I don't recall seeing you back up this opinion with citations; since you've repeated your conclusion here several times, would you mind a brief recap of your reasoning or an explanatory link? Thanks. (I'm guessing that you don't count History because it's not on the same page and therefore not literally part of the article, but that's just a guess.) Also, are you really trying to say that WP shouldn't/can't demand better compliance from clones until it changes its own policies to your liking? If so, I find that odd. ←Hob 23:14, 2004 Sep 6 (UTC)

Images

Is there an issue where a mirror is using images which seem to be hosted on wikipedia severs? http://www.sciencedaily.com/encyclopedia/ seems to do so. There is presumably a bandwidth issue. --Henrygb 13:43, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This should be fixed with technical means. Instead of serving the image, readers of those sites should be detected with http referer and directed to a single image containing the text "Please read the original wikipedia on wikipedia.org. You are currently reading a bad clone. Please complain to your search engine.". Mozzerati 14:18, 2004 Oct 24 (UTC)

LOL, I love that idea. The bigger and more annoying the message the better. DopefishJustin (・∀・) 23:57, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

Developers can prevent this, and have done so in the past for at least one site. Try reporting it at m:Non-compliant site coordination if you feel it's a problem. Angela.

Search -wikipedia

On some subjects, the clones are making finding non-wikipedia content harder to find. The obvious answer is to put -wikipedia in the search box. But even that does not work for all cases: for example Google "as a pedestrian tunnel and is now occupied by" -wikipedia chooses a phrase which does not occur anywhere else and (today) turns up:

• encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com
• wikiverse.org
• namweb.com.na
• goobig.org (wordiq.com)

In some cases it seems the link back to wikipedia.org uses javascript to prevent the word appearing in the source code. A real pain.--Henrygb 14:15, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

And "planned to merge the county back into Hampshire" -wikipedia:

• webster-dictionary.org
• ipedia.com
• masterliness.com
• freeglossary.com

--Henrygb 13:32, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Comment

We should not be so competitive with other wikis.--Arceus fan 20:54, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

We should try to work on wikia instead of google because I think that the search engine was developed for wikimedia.--Arceus fan 20:58, 13 October 2007 (UTC)