--- Rick giantsrick13@yahoo.com wrote:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16551

Yikes! I wish they would have contacted us first since WordIQ isn't that bad and in fact is listed as having a 'high degree of compliance'. So I wrote to author of the article. Below is a copy of that email: ----------------------------------------------------- You wrote:

Anyone enforcing the GNU FDL?

At Wikipedia the authors and administrators of our content enforce the GNU FDL by searching for infringers and contacting them. At first we use a friendly form letter, then a more sternly worded letter, and finally a very stern letter. Usually this works, but some websites are still in breach - we are still trying to figure out what to do with them. We keep track of all this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks

I'm one of the Wikipedia administrators who informed WordIQ that they were breaking the terms of our license by not providing a link back to the Wikipedia original and not mentioning that their copied version of our articles were licensed under terms of the GNU FDL. After some time they did finally provide the link-backs and the mention/link to the GNU FDL that we were asking for. So we listed them under "high degree of compliance."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copies_of_Wikipedia_content_(high_deg...

The chairmen of the Wikimedia Foundation's board (our parent organization) Jimmy Wales had this to say about WordIQ:

|I agree Tualha, wordIQ seems pretty complaint to me. They're linking to |wikipedia so that's great for us. We should put them on the high compliance |list. Compared to all the offenders out there, wordIQ is very legit and has |really cleaned up its act. -- Jimbo

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copies_of_Wikipedia_content_(low_degr...

At Wikipedia we use a very liberal interpretation of the GNU FDL in order to make it easier for people to copy our content. So while I agree that WordIQ's terms and conditions could use some tweaking as well as the "It uses material from" message, I do not think that their current set-up is something to get too worried about. I'm far more concerned about websites that do not provide any link-backs or mention of the GNU FDL.

I really wish you would have contacted us before you ran the article since we could have given you a list of fairly bad offenders. Here is that list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copies_of_Wikipedia_content_(low_degr...)

Sincerely,

Daniel Mayer One of the 240 or so Wikipedia Administrators

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