Wikipedia, The Free Online Medical Encyclopedia Anyone Can Plagiarize: Time to Address Wiki-Plagiarism
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Wikipedia, The Free Online Medical Encyclopedia Anyone Can Plagiarize: Time to Address Wiki‑Plagiarism Michaël R. Laurent1,2
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Plagiarism and self-plagiarism are widespread in biomedical publications, although journals are increasingly implementing plagiarism detection software as part of their editorial processes. Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia written by its users, has global public health importance as a source of online health information. However, plagiarism of Wikipedia in peer-reviewed publications has received little attention. Here, I present five cases of PubMed-indexed articles containing Wiki-plagiarism, i.e. copying of Wikipedia content into medical publications without proper citation of the source. The true incidence of this phenomenon remains unknown and requires systematic study. The potential scope and implications of Wiki-plagiarism are discussed. Keywords Biomedical research · Ethics in publishing · Online health information · Open access · Plagiarism · Wikipedia
Introduction Wikipedia, “the free online encyclopedia anyone can edit”, is an important public health source of online health information [1–3]. However, its medical content has been widely scrutinized and discussed in terms of its accuracy, readability and usage [4–6]. Despite its controversial nature, Wikipedia is increasingly being cited in the medical literature [7]. Wikipedia guidelines require its medical content to be supported by reliable citations, while avoiding plagiarism [8]. Plagiarism of Wikipedia content is very common. However, little has been published about copy-pasting Wikipedia content into biomedical peer-reviewed papers
* Michaël R. Laurent [email protected] 1
Geriatrics Department, Imelda Hospital, Bonheiden, Belgium
2
University Hospitals, Leuven, Belgium
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Publishing Research Quarterly
without citing Wikipedia as the source, which can be considered the wiki-variant of “cyberplagiarism” [9]. Here, I propose the term “Wiki-plagiarism” (i.e. plagiarism of Wikipedia’s content in scientific publications), provide several examples, and discuss implications of this concept.
Case Study Several manual tools or automatic bots systematically screen for plagiarism on Wikipedia. In some instances, this may identify “backwards copyright violation” (although plagiarism is not identical to copyright violation, there is no separate process for both problems on Wikipedia). Following investigation by community editors, a tag may be applied which adds articles to a category of pages with so-called “backwards copyright violation” i.e. involving instances where Wikipedia was plagiarized by others. During an investigation by Wikipedia editors regarding a possible copyright violation in the article “Catamenial pneumothorax”, it became clear that the abstract of an article published in Journal of Thoracic Disease [10], literally copied two sentences which already appeared on Wikipedia in 2006. No other copyrig
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