[Wikipedia-l] another copyright issue

Fri Nov 16 15:36:57 UTC 2001

Hello wikipeople!

How can we ever be sure, that those people who (often anonymously) write
new articles for wikipedia didn't just copy'n'paste it from another
site?

I think we can't.

Take for example
http://de.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Gopher
http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/rus/42/internet/gopher.html
and chapter 2.6 here:
http://www.fitug.de/bildung/allgem/inetein2.html

Is it all from the same author? Or is the wikipedia article just a
('stolen') copy? Or the copy of a revised (but 'stolen') copy? Or is the
source under the GNU Free Documentation License?

How can we be sure about that?

I think nobody wants that just authors with prooved identities (who are
responsible for their writing) are allowed to contribute to wikipedia.

But are we on the save side if we just close our eyes and wait for
people to come and force us to delete articles that many people have put
much work in, but that are based on their text?

Sorry for my bad English, I'm German. If you don't understand what I'm
talking about I'll try my best to make it clearer.

Bye,
Kurt