Wikipedia stealing articles

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  1. Pamela N Red profile image83
    Pamela N Redposted 10 years ago

    I discovered today that the German Wikipedia (Wikiversity) stole one of my articles so you may want to check and see if they have any of your work.

    The aggravating thing is that I have a Google Alert set up for that story but was never notified about this.

    I sent Wikiversity an email and received a notice about another person's complaint. They have volunteers that take care of emails so who knows how this will turn out.

    They also tell you in their disclaimer before you email them that they can't be held responsible since all of their content can be changed by anyone. Which is why you should never use anything you read there unless you have verified the information.

    I noticed my views had fallen off drastically in recent weeks. That particular article has always been popular with a lot of traffic so I should have checked it out sooner.

    1. psycheskinner profile image83
      psycheskinnerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      You could also sign in and add it to the talk page, or potentially reverse the change yourself if they are slow.

    2. Marisa Wright profile image86
      Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      If it was on Wikipedia, I would just sign up as an editor and change it myself.  You don't need special approval to change a Wiki page - that's why accuracy is such a problem!

      Not sure what the situation is with the German version.

      1. Pamela N Red profile image83
        Pamela N Redposted 10 years agoin reply to this

        I didn't know I could do that, Marisa. Good idea.

        It doesn't come up in the English version, only the German even though the article is in English.

        I've never held very much respect for Wikipedia and knew people could go in and change information but I haven't done so myself.

    3. Writer Fox profile image31
      Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      You can file a DMCA notice against Wikipedia just like you do with any other site.  It is not above the law.

      1. psycheskinner profile image83
        psycheskinnerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

        But that would be the slow way to do it.  Just making the change and explaining why on the talk page would be a lot quicker.

        1. Writer Fox profile image31
          Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          The DMCA might get the person who did that banned or at least discourage him from doing it again.  (He can re-edit, too.)

          1. Pamela N Red profile image83
            Pamela N Redposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            From what I'm reading, it may be difficult to find out who posted it since most people are volunteers.

            1. psycheskinner profile image83
              psycheskinnerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

              Every post is electronically tagged to the user who made it.  But it is a bit like asking the police to correct graffiti.  Easier to just get a can of paint.  Just be sure to explain the reason on the "talk" page or it will get reversed.

  2. IzzyM profile image86
    IzzyMposted 10 years ago

    I knew the guy who wrote the wikipedia entry for our village in Spain.

    The entry was titled the "village name", English version or some such.

    Some Spanish guy kept re-writing it in Spanish, despite the fact that a Spanish language entry already existed.

    The guy I knew was getting really frustrated because some-one edited it about 6 times and he had to keep re-editing.

    I'm assuming the German entry is in English when a hub is copied. In which case, it shouldn't be too difficult to edit.

    1. Pamela N Red profile image83
      Pamela N Redposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I'm going to check into editing it today. Thanks everyone for your input.

      1. Pamela N Red profile image83
        Pamela N Redposted 10 years agoin reply to this

        I deleted the page and in it's place left this notice:
        This page has been deleted due to copyright violations.
        Then below that I left a link to my article so they are now helping me with back links. How thoughtful. smile

        1. jponiato profile image89
          jponiatoposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          Excellent.  I'd be curious to find out how much traffic you get from that.

  3. Thomas Swan profile image97
    Thomas Swanposted 10 years ago

    Many have given good answers, but what struck me about your problem was the ineffectiveness of Google Alerts. I haven't had a single alert yet, and I'm reading from many people that the system doesn't work anymore. I don't see any alternative now other than copying a sentence from a hub and putting it into google search to check for stolen hubs. That takes ages though. I wish there was a quicker way (that is free).

    1. Pamela N Red profile image83
      Pamela N Redposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Thomas I get alerts in my email sometimes but most of the time they aren't copied content and just similar articles.

      I have over a hundred articles online and don't have time to go through them all and check to see if I've been plagiarized but I spent most of the day doing just that.

      It's a shame we have to do that but if we make a living writing online we don't have much of a choice.

      1. Pamela N Red profile image83
        Pamela N Redposted 10 years agoin reply to this

        I used this website to look for copied content and it seems to work pretty well but still a manual site.

        http://www.plagiarismchecker.com/

        1. Writer Fox profile image31
          Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          Copyscape is good.  It has a free version but I think you have to use that at the beginning of the month because there is a limit per website for the free one and HubPages gets many requests.  The paid version is 5ยข per search and you have to purchase $10 at a time and use all $10 within one year. There's another version that automatically checks for you every day and that's best for your own websites.

    2. Marisa Wright profile image86
      Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Copyscape isn't free but it only costs about 5c per Hub.

  4. Barbara Kay profile image73
    Barbara Kayposted 10 years ago

    This post made me start searching for more sites that have copied my contents. All I can do is sigh. This is getting overwhelming. Any hub that is a few years old is copied.

  5. Gail Meyers profile image64
    Gail Meyersposted 10 years ago

    Pam, I usually research physically in the library or with on a page with high authority because I noticed some time ago some of the information is inaccurate.  Then I discovered what you said, virtually anyone can edit it.  It is a great concept, but a concern when so many people look at it just like an encyclopedia.  However, I am a little surprised to hear of the scraping!

    Barbara, I have had every hub that built any kind of juice cut and pasted from top to bottom, often including the ads.  Google did respond well to the complaints I filed.

    1. Pamela N Red profile image83
      Pamela N Redposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Gail, the ones that are amusing are the ones that give our personal opinions on a subject. Some even have our names listed in the article. Those are usually people who don't speak English.

      I too use the library, museums or personal experience for my articles. I've never taken much stock in Wikipedia and like them even less after this incident.

 
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