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

[Anthony DiPierro]

On 5/12/06, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>  > Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>  >
> > Anyone know if they use the actual content from Wikipedia or not?
>  >
>  > If they are and they aren't citing authors, aren't they in breach of the
>  > GFDL.  And if that's the case, can we sue?  Please?
>
> Please, let's not. I see it as a good thing that people can access and read Wikipedia articles in some way, whether or not the site is GFDL-compliant. Isn't that why we contribute our time here, to have people read our articles? The most basic freedom for information is the freedom to access and read it. Baidupedia is better than nothing for technically-unsavvy people in mainland China.
>
> -- Matt

First of all, I'm not the one who wrote those sentences your email
client attributed to me.

Secondly, I tend to agree with you that suing over a breach of the
GFDL is not a good idea.  And frankly, I doubt it would work.

Whether or not a grossly censored Baidupedia is better than nothing, I
don't know.  Depends, I suppose, how censored it is, but I get the
impression that the censorship is much tighter than say the censorship
of Google.  From what I know of the situation I'd guess a censored
version of Wikipedia is worse than nothing, because at least with
nothing more people will go through the technical hoops to get around
the firewall.

If anyone has any ideas as to what we can do to help get the real
Wikipedia to the masses in China (no client-side setup required), I'd
love to help.  Maybe some sort of network of distributed servers
providing https access through dynamically rotating IP addresses.

Anthony