Worrying possibly hoax wiki messages [closed]

Question

I am in receipt of the following message:-

Hello Carl,

I've just recently come across some profiles where you seem to have copied the biography from Wikipedia; for instance in this profile http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Hereward-13

Although using Wikipedia as a source is OK (though for pre-1500 profiles I think we should be looking for primary sources), copying Wikipedia articles and pasting them in Wikitree is not OK because they don't have the same copyright licences  - see here http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Copying_from_Wikipedia.

There is no rush to change these biographies, you aren't the only one who has copied Wikipedia articles before.

Thank you

John Atkinson

Co-leader European Aristocrats project

on following the URL http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Copying_from_Wikipedia.  the following message appears:- This page does not exist.

Am I Being Mucked About?

Answer 1

Hi Carl,

That link works for me.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Copying_from_Wikipedia

Which says:

"WikiTree and Wikipedia do not have the same copyright licensing policy. On WikiTree, contributors may maintain their copyrights. See the Terms of Service. On Wikipedia, everything is GNU or Creative Commons. Therefore you should not copy back-and-forth between WikiTree and Wikipedia.

Moreover, there's no need to create a duplicate of, say, Wikipedia's Henry VIII page. You should just link to the Wikipedia article from the biography or sources section of Henry VIII's WikiTree profile.

Of course, if you're adding value and integrating other content, there's nothing wrong with using Wikipedia as a source.

See adding links.

If you're a Wikipedia contributor, you might also want to link Wikipedia articles to quality WikiTree profiles."

 

Comments

Which, as a side note, this page states " On Wikipedia, everything is GNU or Creative Commons".

There is no such thing as a "GNU" license. (I know, I work in the Open Source field.) It would have to be the "GNU Public License (GPL)", if that is what is truly meant.

And there are many different kinds of "Creative Common" licenses. That term is not specific enough.

In reality, that statement should be reworded to be specific and accurate, and better still, point to the Wikipedia site that states that. Otherwise, it's a misleading statement.

---

Thank you for that meaningful clarification Eric.  That is much more interesting and far less alarming than the original message.

I see the reason why the link did not work for me was that in the original message it was followed by a full-stop instead of a space which prevented it being a legitimate URL when copied as given

Answer 2

The page comes up for me when I click on the link.  It says it at the bottom, "This page was last modified 14:05, 15 May 2014. This page has been accessed 2,681 times."  And what the page says is what I've seen here before.  

Comments

Thanks Dave.