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I tracked down my impostor

theguardian.com

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Re: I tracked down my impostor

#161

Post by rincebrain »

autophagian wrote: post #19

For the curious: this emerged as a twitter thread back in Jan https://twitter.com/mattlodder/status/1350192856154198016 . In it, Dr. Lodder posts a comparison between his tattoos and his imposters, as well as a talk his imposter gave based on his work, while dressed as him. Creepy.

I was very confused when I clicked this article, as I recognized a lot of the details - then looking in my browser history, this also turned up as a story on Vice in February [1], where I had read it.

[1] - https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp4gx/professor-catfished-b...

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#162

Post by boogies »

niels_bom wrote: post #114
whatshisface wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of something I experienced on HN and Reddit, though my case was a far less significant level. There was a Reddit bot a few years ago (aptly named 'trappedinreddit') that would automatically post the previous top comment on reposts. I bet it was Reddit internal bots. That process is an order of magnitude faster on Reddit than control-v.

Is this a meta-joke? 4h ago somebody posted your exact first sentence. :-/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26604648

(and second, third, and almost exact fourth)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26605151

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26606165

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26605093

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#164

Post by samatman »

cammikebrown wrote: post #123
worker767424 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the US it is 90-100 In a science or engineering class, it might be everything above 40%.

I really did not enjoy getting 40% on every test in math and physics and receiving a B. I do not feel like I learned the material that well. My very first freshman mechanics midterm grade, a 67, was an A+, and gave me a false sense of adequacy. Maybe they could figure out how to teach better?

It's perfectly human to want to pass with a perfect score, but this undermines the purpose of a test.

A test which has a significant fraction of scores at the right side of the distribution has saturated the range: there are differences in comprehension and mastery between one 100% and another, which aren't being measured by the test.

The platonic form of a perfect test would have exactly one student per class who got every question correct, but that's impossible to reach except by luck. So a teacher is stuck between writing a test which is too difficult for everyone, and one which is too easy for a substantial fraction of the class. They should pick the first over the second.

While that can feel frustrating (I know, I've been there!) it's likely that you in fact learned the material better than you would have in a class where your level of mastery allowed you to score perfectly for an A+ and in the mid 80s for a B.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#165

Post by ajcp »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #109
worker767424 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the US it is 90-100 In a science or engineering class, it might be everything above 40%.

In a high priced private US university, you may get an A just for showing up.

I assure you neither "high priced" nor "private" are necessary for this. In fact, those institutions have more to lose for doing so than a "low price public US university"

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#166

Post by Yaa101 »

These people are called chimeras, some of them are so dangerous that they replace a person in real time, yes meaning that they kill the person to take it's place. Nature brings strange creatures.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#167

Post by analog31 »

mkl wrote: post #100
worker767424 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep waiting for someone to find a plagiarism checker retained a copy of their work and sue for copyright infringement.

Of course they retain a copy; that's part of how they detect plagiarism. It's been ruled fair use in the US [1], and if it hadn't it would be in the terms and conditions. You can opt out of retention on TurnItIn, but it's the default. [1] https://www.turnitin.com/blog/top-15-misconceptions-about-tu...

Does it satisfy FERPA? If my paper were in their database, and all or part of it was revealed to another student in the process of claiming a match, that would be a violation of my FERPA rights.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#168

Post by WoodenChair »

This is a crazy story. Especially the part where the person just claimed the other person's work as his own, not even pretending they were doing another version of it (more typical plagiarism). A small version of this happened to me many years ago. A dude who was a technical editor on my first book (and actually seemed to get fired by the publisher, because another technical editor replaced him midway through), claimed to be an author of the book on Stack Overflow and his own web page/resume. Truly bizarre because only my name was on the cover.

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#169

Post by Qub3d »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #154
mmaunder wrote: post #103

Twist: The article is written by the imposter who discredited and then disappeared the real Dr Lodder.

I expect that in my lifetime there will be (or already has been) an imposter that gets a leg up on someone in this way and pulls it off- “no, I wrote the article first, they stole it from me and published it. Here are my drafts which predate their submission. Fire them, not me.”

As the imposter this is a really dangerous gambit, though. If it succeeds, and that person stops doing academic work, who does the imposter plagiarize from?

Re: I tracked down my impostor

#170

Post by rriepe »

N00bN00b wrote: post #147
disabled wrote: post #106

I have been a victim of this, and it is still an ongoing matter. If you don't want to find yourself a victim of these kinds of people, then you better keep these two links as a reference, and always take them to heart: Narcissists Online: http://www.issendai.com/psychology/narcissism/narcissists-on... What to Remember When Dealing with a Narcissist: http://www.issendai.com/psychology/narcissism/narcissists-wh... Peop…

I doubt it's a narcissist and I'm saying that as a narcissist myself. That fragile ego basically means narcissists are afraid of humiliation. On top that, mentally everything is build around shoring up my ego to compensate for the low self esteem. My ego. Not someone else's ego. I'd have to do some really weird mental gymnastics to be satisfied with copying someone else's work, that would just lower my ego even more.…

> The narcissistic self deception is involuntary

Self-aware narcissists are pretty rare too. Can you e-mail me? Info in profile.

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