Last modified: 2007-03-29 21:36:57 UTC
Dear WikiMedia folks, I am part of the management team for KnowItNow (www.knowitnow.org), the largest and most successful virtual reference service in the United States. The KnowItNow online service provides online research and homework help for all of Ohio's residents, over 11 million people. Many of the trained librarians who provide assistance have found the answers they are looking for (yes, many librarians DO view Wikipedia as a reputable resource!) in Wikipedia, but have been unable to actually point online patrons to Wikipedia pages, due to their frame busting nature. The software the service runs on uses frames. When a librarian attempts to "push" a Wikipedia page to an online patron via the software (as is done with all web resources used to answer a patron's question), it breaks the frame and the user is disconnected from the KnowItNow service. Librarians are keenly aware of the need to protect intellectual property, and understand the need to add frame busting JavaScript to Wikipedia's pages. However, we have had to start telling our librarians "don't use Wikipedia for KnowItNow reference transactions" when they are being trained. It is a loss of a valuable resource that could be used to answer literally thousands of reference questions every year. Would it be possible to add a bit of code to look for a referring URL? If Wikipedia knew the download request was coming from the KnowItNow service, it could avoid executing the frame busting code. The KnowItNow management team would be happy to work with you on this solution. Thank you for considering, and please don't hesitate to contact me if I can help pursue a solution in any way. Laura Solomon 325 Superior Avenue Web Applications Supervisor Cleveland, Ohio 44114 laura@cpl.org http://www.cpl.org
Frame-breaking can be toggled using $wgBreakFrames in LocalSettings.php, and appears to have been disabled for Wikimedia web sites.
