Last week, I had a very interesting dialogue with Answers.com and Jimbo Wales. I give credit to Jimmy for reminding me that I'm evaluating the efforts of (most likely) a low-level customer support person, and not the Answers.com management. But, still... this is funny stuff.

I'll do my best to summarize the story.

I noticed that Answers.com had picked up the Wikipedia article about myself, [[Gregory Kohs]], even though that article had been deleted from Wikipedia thanks to the unflagging efforts of JzG and company. The article was stubby, and it looked like this:



This prompted me to write an e-mail to the Answers.com support desk. My e-mail read as follows:



I pretty much thought I knew the kind of reply I was going to get (if any), but I was actually surprised by the first response -- namely because of what was said (highlighted in green) about the GFDL:



Could a company that has such a high-profile relationship with the Wikimedia Foundation really be that daft about what the GFDL actually prescribes? I wrote back immediately, copying Jimbo and Eloquence for possible further edification:



That prompted Jimbo to remind me that I was conversing with a customer support person, not the CEO of Answers.com (whom Jimbo said would get a copy of my e-mail). Very true. And, sure enough, I soon received another reply from Ricky at Answers.com. But this time, there was a new head-slapper, highlighted in red:



So, the consistent theme from my dialogue with Answers.com was that I should not forget to "tell my friends and colleagues" about them. In that spirit, I hope that I have successfully told you all here about Answers.com.

Greg

I had no idea that your "Wikipedia Review.com" article was so well sourced. They probably AfDed it because of low volume of net sales or something like that. That should not matter if the concept of the specific business activities was so much discussed in journalistic and academic publications.

The help desk explanation of the GFDL license barring modification is about on the level of the explanations I get when I ask why there is no Linux drivers for my wireless card.

You think that's funny ...

Here's another one ...

Too bizzy to look up the diffs rite now, but search this site for info about what happened to the article on Truth Theory, that got scraped by Wikia, sans its history, even after the Junkyard Chihuahuas ripped it out of Wikipedia ...

Jonny

They didn't even catch my appearance on national television, either. Oh sure, I would imagine the Protectors of Wikipedia would come out in droves to disparage the worthiness of the G4TV channel. To which I would point them to:

Jimmy Wales' interview yesterday on the exact same show I appeared on.

Certainly, Wikipedia Review.com hasn't made a ton of money yet (then again, I presume neither have the British Valve Association, Three of Many Records, or the Trump Shuttle). As you noted, though, profitability is nowhere to be found as a criterion in WP:CORP.

Actually, this line of argument is irrelevant on this particular article, because the subject was "Gregory Kohs", not Wikipedia Review.com. I was deemed, as a human being, "non-notable" by Wikipedia's standards.

Notable enough for the Associated Press, for the G4TV network, the Board of my church, and for a paper published in the American Journal of Roentgenology. But not for Wikipedia's exacting standards.

Greg

You WANT a bio? When you are banned? Youd' have to check it daily for vandalism, and it would not be protected.

I'm sure they'd let him comment on the talk page. I see that User: Daniel Brandt is banned, but he has commented twice afterwards without that IP address getting blocked.

I would presume that the reason Answers.com will not mantain articles after Wikipedia has deleted them is because answers.com doesn't maintain a list of contributors; rather, referring users to Wikipedia to see who wrote it. When an article has been deleted from Wikipedia, there is no longer a list of contributors.

Whether this practice is actually valid under the GFDL is questionable. (On the other hand, it's not like the completely anonymous users who make up most of Wikipedia can honestly claim any rights over their text. They'd have to identify themselves in order to do that.)

Greg, have you seen this document which clearly names Jimbo as agent in any copyright infringement cases?.....

If the GFLD is not followed, then the probable result is "copyright infringement". It seems to me that this line of reasoning might be interesting to explore....

Doesn't this beg the question -- how is it that Wikipedia isn't itself violating GFDL by altering (removing) GFDL-licensed content and removing all trace of the list of contributors?

Greg

Well, that depends on what form of removal you are talking about.

When you are talking about outright page deletion when there are no content forks on Wikipedia*, there isn't any GFDL violation on the part of Wikipedia, as the content is no longer in existence on Wikipedia. It isn't Wikipedia's responsibility to maintain lists of contributors for GFDL spammers forkers - that is the responsibility of those who fork the content.

If we're talking about the oversight function, or the practice of deleting pages and restoring the history in part, that is most certainly a GFDL violation, in the event that the removed revision contains content that also appears in later revisions. It's very shaky ground.

*By "content forks on Wikipedia", I mean a re-use of the same content on the Wikipedia project itself. As an example, suppose someone created an article titled [[History of Foo]]. Later on, another contributer took these edits and placed them in another article titled [[Foo]]. If an admin were to come along and delete the page titled [[History of Foo]], there is now a GFDL violation. This doesn't happen often, to my knowledge. Indeed, I don't know of any time that it actually has happened, but it does remain a distinct possibility.

Considering how (I believe) virtually none of the GFDL content scrapers who copy Wikipedia actually record a history of the contributors to that point -- instead relying on Wikipedia to be the eternal storage dump of that information -- I couldn't agree more that the whole license and the level of actual obedience to it is indeed "shaky ground".

Nothing like building your new headquarters building on a patch of quicksand.

Greg

Look, suppose you contribute money to a charity, on the understanding that your name will be engraved on a marble plaque.

Later you find that your name has been buffed off the plaque, so you inquire of the charity management, and they say, "But we spent the money".

Jonny

Jimbo speaks!



Okay, so now I'm more confused than before. I guess what Jimmy is suggesting is to maintain the "problematic" edits in the Akashic Record of the article, but just wipe the current version clean and start all over?

What happens when the new version begins to see resurrected "problematic" edits again? Delete the whole article again and try once more, this time remembering not to allow anyone to re-create the "problematic" stuff?

Wasn't that the basis of a Star Trek: TNG episode? They kept trying to escape some massive wormhole explosion of catastrophic proportions, but then Cmdr. Data finally thought to encode the 3 buttons on someone's uniform, so the "next" time, he'd follow that person's orders. Ah, yes.

Greg

Jimbo Wales — A * Is Born

Teacher. Jimmy, your report on "The Akashic Record" looks very much like it was copied straight out of the Encyclopædia Britannica. You know that plagiarism is cause for a failing grade, if not expulsion.

Jimmy. Dat's ok, Teach, 'cuz I fed doz pages of our 'cyclepedia to my ol' dog, Wiki.

Jonny

Teacher. Oh, GNU!

We need to be careful. There's yet another source about Wikipedia Review.com, now. Indeed, a full-length book written by a Berkman Fellow. No, not the most famous Berkman Fellow, Jimmy Wales, but rather Jonathan Zittrain.

* Jonathan Zittrain. "The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It", 2008, citation: page 140.

#1 in Amazon Books > Nonfiction > Law > Perspectives on Law > Science & Technology
#1 in Amazon Books > Professional & Technical > Law > Perspectives on Law > Science & Technology
#2 in Amazon Books > Computers & Internet > Business & Culture > Privacy
#3,072 in Amazon Books

Excerpt from page 140:



I guess there's just not enough reliable, secondary source information about Wikipedia Review to merit an article in Wikipedia. The above text simply glances over Wikipedia Review in a tangential fashion. Zittrain is hardly a notable author, either. I mean, he's only appeared on the Colbert Report to promote the book. Sheesh, this Wikipedia Review is completely NON-NOTABLE... I don't even know why I bothered with this post!

Greg

B Careful Wot U Wiki 4 !

Jon

Egads, the sources listed in that skeletal article above didn't even include the NATIONAL TELEVISION APPEARANCE of Gregory Kohs, talking about paid editing on Wikipedia.

Just not notable! Not at all!

You've heard about blood diamonds, right?



Tin, silver, gold, ore, diamonds, oil... what's next?

Great link.

I enjoyed this:



I wonder what the ratio is of sycophants who crawl back through that gauntlet, versus the total number of sitebanned editors? My guess -- less than 2 : 100.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5zRe8wa4pM

Here's a conspiracy theory for ya: what if Wales actually owns all the Wiki-scrapers? Interesting way to make money while keeping up a non-profit front

*facepalm*

At Wikipedia, Illustrators May Be Paid
Wikipedia Gets Published - Should Writers Get Paid?
Idea of Paid Entries Roils Wikipedia
...

Uh oh, Wikipedia Review has two mentions in a new German hardcover book.

Informationelles Vertrauen für die Informationsgesellschaft (Trusted Information for Information Companies), by Dieter Klumpp, Herbert Kubicek, Alexander Rossnagel, and Wolfgang Schulz. Hardcover: 362 pages, published in February 2008; Publisher: Springer.

Wikipedia Review appears to be included on Page 180 and Page 186.

With all of these multiple citations in reliable sources, I wonder why there is no article in Wikipedia about Wikipedia Review. Does the Washington Post, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Die Welt, the Attack of the Show (TV program), and now Dieter Klumpp and colleagues know something that Wikipedia does not?

Very interesting set of standards on Wikipedia.

Greg

C. Interessenkonflikte
Eine dritte Bedrohung für die Integrität der Enzyklopädie sind Interessenkonflikte einzelner
Autoren. Während Beiträge in eigener Sache grundsätzlich verpönt sind und regelmäßig zu
schneller Löschung führen, werden auch kommerziell motivierte Artikel von der Gemeinschaft
als problematisch angesehen. Ein Beispiel war der Service „Wikipedia Review“ in der englischen
Wikipedia.39 Wikipedia Review bot seinen Kunden an, gegen eine Gebühr unter dem offiziellen
Wikipedia Review-Account einen kurzen Beitrag zu verfassen. Als diese Praxis bekannt wurde,
sperrte Jimmy Wales zunächst eigenmächtig den Zugang der Firma mit der Begründung, dass
es sich um einen bezahlten Beitrag im Auftrag eines Kunden handele. Dieser in der Geschichte
der Wikipedia äußerst seltene Vorgang führte zu reger Diskussion. Schließlich wurde in einem
Telefongespräch zwischen Wales und Vertretern von Wikipedia Review ein Kompromiss gefunden,
wonach die Firma auf ihrer Webseite Beiträge anbietet, derer sich Wikipedianer bedienen
können. In der Folge nahmen die Autoren das Angebot von Artikeln jedoch nur in sehr
begrenztem Maße an. Weitere Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Wikipedia Review und Wales führten
schließlich zur endgültigen Sperrung des Firmenzugangs.40

Teach the Controversy?

If you ask Taxwoman nicely, maybe she'll put an article on Wipipedia.