Apparently, an Amazon.com ‘user review’ of a guidebook we wrote a few years ago claims that parts of the book were ‘lifted from Wikipedia.’
Really?
Knowing full well that they were not (we have the original words – and they were original, all god-knows-how-many thousands of them – on a hard drive somewhere), we wondered why said reviewer might have come to such a conclusion.
Then it dawned on us.
For a large number of people, Wikipedia is the be and end all of human knowledge. If a text is seen on Wikipedia and then seen somewhere else, it must mean that Wikipedia has been copied.
Wrong.
In the vast majority of cases (as, we assume, in ours) if you see a text identical or nearly identical to one on Wikipedia, it means that the reverse is in fact true: that somebody has taken the original text and dumped it on Wikipedia.
One more reason to dislike Wikipedia.
We would also point out two further things: (1) The reviewer in question hadn’t even bought the hard copy of the book (he had bought a Kindle – electronic – version); (2) Every other reviewer on Amazon.com gives the book five stars.
(If you’re remotely interested, we’ve touched on a couple of related issues before. See here, and here).
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
well, I really don’t see this “incident” as a proof that wikipedia is a threat for honest hard working creative people.
A good Wikipedia article always has to cite its references. If it doesn’t then it has to point this. If you feel that your work was used for the article in question you can: a. delete de article and flag it as a copyright infringement act (the paranoid reaction); b. send wikipedia an email that the article in question is infringing your copyright (the administrators there are usually pretty fast in reacting to these ones); c. edit the article so that it emphasizes that the reader can find more and qualitatively better information in your book.
I would say that in fact, if you go with c. the existence of Wikipedia actually represents an opportunity for any “creative” type. I personally start from wikipedia a lot of times when I research something and then I follow the references. And as you observed a lot of people consider wikipedia as a good and trustful source of information – so I guess being a source for wikipedia also translates on your work part of that trust.
So, my conclusion is that you can’t beat Wikipedia, but you can join it and gain from it, so, stop fighting