Wikiplagiarism?
Self-proclaimed "online activist" Daniel Brandt, creator of the Google Watch and Wikipedia Watch websites, has a new bone to pick with Wikipedia: plagiarism. Brandt claims he's found 142 examples of material copied from other sources.

The Sydney Morning Herald examines the controversy and concludes that Brandt's accusations are overstated. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, reviewed the list and said that some questionable passages are in the public domain. In other cases, Wikipedia itself is the original source of material that was copied elsewhere on the Web. But there were genuine cases of plagiarism on Brandt's list, and Wikipedia editors are reviewing those instances and all other Wikipedia contributions made by the now-suspect authors.

Is plagiarism acceptable on a free-for-all website written and edited by anyone with an Internet connection? Of course not, but policing such a mammoth encylopedia is hard. One suggestion for Wikipedia's volunteer editors? Enforce the requirement that all statements posted be attributed to a source. At least that will make cases of plagiarism instantly obvious.
Posted by Owen Thomas 11:37 AM 0 Comments comment | Add a Comment

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.