This whole issue has been completely resolved, and I encourage everyone to go to www.innergeek.us and take Yvette’s test, and to go to my previous blog entry and read my full apology for some stupid things typed in the heat of the moment – August 24th 2004.
To: The Owner/Administrator of www.innergeek.us.
I recently had the fortune to stumble over the Geek Test on innergeek.us. In the process of filling it out I couldn’t help but notice that several of the questions were uncannily similar to those on my own Geek Test (URL). This similarity was only reinforced when I submitted the test and received not just a percentage rating, but a label based on that rating – in exactly the same fashion as my test.
On viewing the source of the page I discovered that the original javascript I wrote for the evaluation of my test is being used (with some modifications) to calculate the score. In addition to this the HTML of the rest of the page is also clearly copied from my test, including the 100%/80% nested tables, erroneous margin tags in the outer table, nonfunctional ‘title’ class and 80% HR tags around the title.
While I don’t mean to accuse anyone of plagiarism or theft, it is quite clear that your Geek Test is an edited copy of my Geek Test. As such I feel justified in pointing out that the source of my test contains a copyright statement, which – while it may not stand up under the Rio Protocol for instance – certainly asserts my right to be acknowledged as the author of the work.
I should make it clear here that I’m NOT going to ask you to take down or modify your test. I like your test, I like what you’ve done with it and I like it that something that I created has gone on to greater things. However I do feel somewhat cheated that no acknowledgment of my original work (or that of my friends who provided many of the questions copied to your test) is provided.
Instead I would politely request that a simple acknowledgment of the origins of the test be added to the test page (in small letters down the bottom is fine) with a link back to either my Geek Test (URL), the Tales of the Geek Underclass (URL), or my website (URL). Something along the lines of “Based on the original Geek Test by D.P.Wyrm” for instance.
I feel that this is a reasonable request under the circumstances. After all, how would you feel if someone copied your version of the test (or some other content) from your website to their own and posted it without any acknowledgment of its origin or the work you put in to create it?
In return I will happily place a link to your test and website from my test.
Please let me know your response.
Regards
Denys the Purple Wyrm
