[Foundation-l] The WikiNews fork - for lack of a copyvio detection bot half a project was lost

[Tempodivalse]

On Wed Sep 14 07:40:20, WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think the responses are a credit to Wikinews. This one 
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikinews-l/2011-September/002035.html 
> in particular. It seems that they need something like CorenSearchBot to 
> trackdown copyvio and plagiarism. 

Here's another interesting post regarding copyrights, Wikinews, and the fork. 
I disagree with the conclusion the author draws, but it's good to have both 
sides of the argument.

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikinews-l/2011-September/002040.html

The problem is that, on larger projects, it's impossible to check every word in 
the project against every possible website in a timely manner. Imagine: en.wp installs FlaggedRevs 
for every article. All edits and new pages, before going "live", have to undergo thorough checks for 
factuality against the sources and detailed copyright checks, down to the last word.
Think of what would happen. There backlog would soar, as there are not enough reviewers 
to check every edit as it is made in such detail, even with the assistance of bots.

This potential situation is somewhat similar to Wikinews', but WN's problems are compounded 
by the fact that they *must* be always up-to-date or they are not useful at all. I happen to think 
this approach is somewhat un-wiki-like, especially when there are very few reviewers. I 
note that most WMF projects don't follow this model, instead removing copyright violations 
and inaccurate statements as they find them. In theory, this means that the articles will not be 
of any quality, but didn't someone once say, "Wikipedia works in practice, but not in theory?"

CorenSearchBot would be quite useful for both Wikinews and OpenGlobe; 
in general, I think wiki projects should take advantage of copyright searches 
more often. If anyone can install the bot on OpenGlobe, please post at our Village 
Pump.

Regards,

-Tempodivalse