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Dating Magazine > Online Dating News > Yale College Council / WesMatch
Yale College Council Accused
of Copying Dating Site
(onlinedatingmagazine.com -
April 5, 2004) When the Yale College Council (YCC)
decided to open an online dating service at Yale, they
contacted
Wesleyan's online dating service WesMatch for a possible
partnership. A week after being given a demo login
for WesMatch, the Yale College Council opened its service.
But the service looked quite a bit like WesMatch, which
the Yale College Council hadn't licensed a deal with.
Now the Yale College Council is being accused of copyright
infringement.
Late last month the creators of WesMatch
publicly released documentation supporting their assertion
that the Yale College Council was stealing their code
and content. They also released an image (seen immediately
below) that shows the sign up questionnaire in which
the Yale College Council is accused of copying 16 multiple
choice questions, most verbatim.
WesMatch put out a news release in which
they poked fun at Yale's service, which they call a
"copy and paste" job. In the release, WesMatch site
programmer Dan Stillman ’04 expressed relief
that the Yale site so closely mirrored his own work: “I
had always been a little unsure about the color scheme
I chose for the questionnaire, but when I saw that
they didn't even bother to change the colors when they
copied over the code, it really set me at ease.”
The release also pointed out the following:
YCC members did make a number of valuable
contributions of their own to the site, changing the
'Leadership' answer 'Doug
Bennet calls me for favors' to 'Levin calls
me for favors,' the phrase 'Slow down,
tiger' to 'Not so fast there, tiger,' and
the question title 'Tolerance for Fools' to 'Tolerance
of Fools.' They also improved the accuracy of
the site by adding a number of questions relevant to
compatibility, including 'Celebrity Promiscuity,'
'Super Bowl Moment,' and a question asking users
to select their favorite Ninja Turtle.
In an opinion editorial, Yale Daily News
attacked the YCC for what appeared to be plagiarism.
Says one part of the opinion piece:
"The
University should not leave the controversy to the
YCC to resolve and should conduct
its own thorough investigation of WesMatch's serious
charges. If students on the YCC did borrow too liberally
from WesMatch, the YCC owes Wesleyan the licensing
fee it skipped out on the first time. Further, we
especially urge the University to hold any students
responsible
for the alleged theft to the same standards of discipline
that would apply to any Yale student who plagiarizes."
The online dating survey has been removed
from the YCC's online dating site.
Click here to read WesMatch's News Release
> Perfectmatch.com - The best approach to find the one.
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