[WikiEN-l] Baidupedia (the downside to free content?)

[Tim Starling]

Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> I think people seem to be missing the point.  Sure, Baidu might be in
> technical violation of the GFDL, in which case pretty much every
> fork/mirror in the world is in technical violation of it.  I was more
> focussed on the fact that "entries on Baidupedia, the service from
> Nasdaq-listed Baidu.com launched last month, are censored by the
> Chinese Government".  

Indeed.

> This is especially horrible because the real
> Wikipedia *isn't accessible in China* to the average internet user who
> doesn't jump through a bunch of technical hoops.

Actually it was accessible for the average user until a day and a half ago,
via wikipedia.cnblog.org, a proxy which was even listed in some of the
search engines, including Baidu itself. The launch of this Wikipedia fork
seems to have coincided with a crackdown on various firewall evasion techniques.

-- Tim Starling