Is it OK to copy Wikipedia article to CFD-wiki?

CFDer · December 8, 2009, 22:19

I found there are many articles in Wikipedia are of interest to the readers of CFD-online and it will be very beneficial if those articles appear on CFD-wiki. So my question is that can I LEGALLY copy an article from Wikipedia to CFD-wiki? According to the licenses (GNU free documentation and Creative Common licenses) that Wikipedia are using, it seems to me it is OK to make such copy provided that the original source of article is identified as Wikipedia and a link back to such source is provided in the CFD-online article. I just want to hear the opinions from this community about this issue.

On a related issue, if anybody copies a CFD-Online article to Wikipedia (CFD-Online is identified as the original source and a link back to CFD-wiki article is provided), does the copyright policy of CFD-Online permit such copy?

pete · December 9, 2009, 14:25

CFD-Wiki on CFD Online and Wikipedia use the same license and both allow other sites to use their material provided the source is identified. People have already copied several articles from CFD-Wiki into Wikipedia and that is perfectly okay. Using Wikipedia material on CFD-Wiki is also okay as long as the source is given.

jola · December 9, 2009, 16:17

Yes, Pete is right, copying material between CFD-Wiki and Wikipedia is okay as long as you give the source. Wikipedia has already used several articles from CFD-Wiki, here are a couple of examples of articles at Wikipedia that were directly copied from CFD-Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cebeci%E2%80%93Smith_model
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spalart...rbulence_model

I'm not aware of any such copied pages from Wikipedia in CFD-Wiki, but I know myself that I have at least used Wikipedia when I have written CFD-Wiki articles. Both are under the GNU Free Documentation License and should help promote and develop eachother. CFD-Wiki is only focused on CFD while Wikipedia is general and has to cover all aspects of a topic.

Over the last years user contributions to CFD-Wiki has kind of stalled, which is a pity. At the same time traffic from interested surfers, mainly students, to CFD-Wiki continues to rise quickly. We should find a way to somehow get people to contribute material also. Several years ago we had a dedicated team of authors who spent a lot of time to develop the material in CFD-Wiki.

CFDer · December 10, 2009, 23:01

Thank both Pete and Jola for their clarification. If I copy an article from Wikipedia to CFD-wiki and put the web address at Wikipedia in an external link, then I have fulfilled the copyright requirement by Wikipedia. At a later time, another user add some new materials to the article and decide to remove the external link to Wikipedia. As the results, CFD-wiki will have materials from Wikipedia but did not show the source of the material - a violation of the copyright. If this happen to the article that I copied from Wikipedia, who is responsible?

While most contents in Wikipedia are under both GNU free documentation and Creative Common licenses, the CFD-wiki is under GNU free documentation license only. If we copy materials from Wikipedia that is under Creative common license only (for materials posted after June 15, 2009) to CFD-wiki that Creative Common license is NOT adopted, will that violate Wikipedia's Creative common license?

pete · December 11, 2009, 07:16

Both CFD-Wiki and Wikipedia have full history control so any acknoledgements you make in your version will be available online for all time. We should of course not delete acknoledgements and whoever does so is responsible for that action. If you notice articles where acknowledgements have been incorrectly removed you can just ad them again.

CC and GFDL are very similar and the CC licenese allows re-distribution under a similar license. I wouldn't worry too much about that.

View Poll Results: Is it OK to copy an article from Wikipedia to CFD-wiki?
Yes.	18	81.82%
No.	1	4.55%
I am not sure.	3	13.64%
Voters: 22. You may not vote on this poll

December 8, 2009, 22:19	Is it OK to copy Wikipedia article to CFD-wiki?	#1
CFDer New Member CFDer Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 2 Rep Power: 0	I found there are many articles in Wikipedia are of interest to the readers of CFD-online and it will be very beneficial if those articles appear on CFD-wiki. So my question is that can I LEGALLY copy an article from Wikipedia to CFD-wiki? According to the licenses (GNU free documentation and Creative Common licenses) that Wikipedia are using, it seems to me it is OK to make such copy provided that the original source of article is identified as Wikipedia and a link back to such source is provided in the CFD-online article. I just want to hear the opinions from this community about this issue. On a related issue, if anybody copies a CFD-Online article to Wikipedia (CFD-Online is identified as the original source and a link back to CFD-wiki article is provided), does the copyright policy of CFD-Online permit such copy?

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December 9, 2009, 14:25		#2
pete Administrator Peter Jones Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 682 Rep Power: 10	CFD-Wiki on CFD Online and Wikipedia use the same license and both allow other sites to use their material provided the source is identified. People have already copied several articles from CFD-Wiki into Wikipedia and that is perfectly okay. Using Wikipedia material on CFD-Wiki is also okay as long as the source is given.

December 9, 2009, 16:17		#3
jola Administrator Jonas Larsson Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Gothenburg, Sweden Posts: 835 Rep Power: 10	Yes, Pete is right, copying material between CFD-Wiki and Wikipedia is okay as long as you give the source. Wikipedia has already used several articles from CFD-Wiki, here are a couple of examples of articles at Wikipedia that were directly copied from CFD-Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cebeci%E2%80%93Smith_model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spalart...rbulence_model I'm not aware of any such copied pages from Wikipedia in CFD-Wiki, but I know myself that I have at least used Wikipedia when I have written CFD-Wiki articles. Both are under the GNU Free Documentation License and should help promote and develop eachother. CFD-Wiki is only focused on CFD while Wikipedia is general and has to cover all aspects of a topic. Over the last years user contributions to CFD-Wiki has kind of stalled, which is a pity. At the same time traffic from interested surfers, mainly students, to CFD-Wiki continues to rise quickly. We should find a way to somehow get people to contribute material also. Several years ago we had a dedicated team of authors who spent a lot of time to develop the material in CFD-Wiki.

December 10, 2009, 23:01		#4
CFDer New Member CFDer Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 2 Rep Power: 0	Thank both Pete and Jola for their clarification. If I copy an article from Wikipedia to CFD-wiki and put the web address at Wikipedia in an external link, then I have fulfilled the copyright requirement by Wikipedia. At a later time, another user add some new materials to the article and decide to remove the external link to Wikipedia. As the results, CFD-wiki will have materials from Wikipedia but did not show the source of the material - a violation of the copyright. If this happen to the article that I copied from Wikipedia, who is responsible? While most contents in Wikipedia are under both GNU free documentation and Creative Common licenses, the CFD-wiki is under GNU free documentation license only. If we copy materials from Wikipedia that is under Creative common license only (for materials posted after June 15, 2009) to CFD-wiki that Creative Common license is NOT adopted, will that violate Wikipedia's Creative common license?

December 11, 2009, 07:16		#5
pete Administrator Peter Jones Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 682 Rep Power: 10	Both CFD-Wiki and Wikipedia have full history control so any acknoledgements you make in your version will be available online for all time. We should of course not delete acknoledgements and whoever does so is responsible for that action. If you notice articles where acknowledgements have been incorrectly removed you can just ad them again. CC and GFDL are very similar and the CC licenese allows re-distribution under a similar license. I wouldn't worry too much about that.