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Plagiarism

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Re: Plagiarism

#31

Post by huggyface »

Braasch wrote: post #10
zeedotme wrote: post #9

Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…

The author should have put quotes around the paragraphs that were blatantly copy and only slightly tweaked to show it came directly from the piece and wasn't written by Harrison. Oh, and your Twitter response was laughably immature to me.

and your Twitter response was laughably immature to me.

That is what put it over the top for me. The astonishingly lazy copying was bad enough, but feeling entitled about it is shocking.

Here's the thing -- people linked from sites like TNW report little to no traffic (which, of course, is wholly the intention of sites like TNW -- they don't want the eyeballs leaving). Quite the opposite, in fact, because this blogspam (is it anything but? Was there anything of value added?) steals traffic and linklove that would have gone to the usurped.

TNW: Drop the laughable notion that you're doing anyone a favour when you steal their content. It sells to no one. Good content will find its way atop the social news sites quickly, and all you're doing is getting in the way and trying to steal off some of the traffic of other people's work.

Re: Plagiarism

#32

Post by potatolicious »

zeedotme wrote: post #9

Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…

Not copying text might help. I don't think anyone here takes issue with using the numbers, but copyin text verbatim (or very close to verbatim) is definitely uncool.

As for credit - one of you is lying. He explicitly claims no link back was provided in te original post, while you explicitly claim there was. So... Which is it?

Re: Plagiarism

#33

Post by [deleted] »

Braasch wrote: post #10
zeedotme wrote: post #9

Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…

The author should have put quotes around the paragraphs that were blatantly copy and only slightly tweaked to show it came directly from the piece and wasn't written by Harrison. Oh, and your Twitter response was laughably immature to me.

[deleted]

Re: Plagiarism

#34

Post by andos »

zeedotme wrote: post #9

Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…

A case of poor timing, I think. TNW posts a non-attributed version of the article [1]. Author complains on twitter. Meanwhile, TNW notices the error and ninja-edits the post with proper attribution [2]. You check the updated post. Drama ensues on twitter.

Edit. Oi, I'm not saying TNW is in the right, people. Just pointing out something that their CEO seems to have missed.

[1]. http://cl.ly/0q1C3n1j323R3C131X0d/o [2]. http://cl.ly/1a0c2y2p291H1u2T2s3S/o

Re: Plagiarism

#35

Post by exogen »

zeedotme wrote: post #11
petercooper wrote: post #3

The old adage is you can't copyright facts and there was certainly no requirement for TNW to do any "original research" to share these findings. However, when you copy/use facts, you wade into hot water if you also copy the structure and the way those facts were originally expressed. The original TNW article shown here seems to step over that line with a barely masked copy of the original paragraphs. What bothers me…

I'd honestly much rather be brutally honest than go down the artificial PR route.

Brutal honesty tends to work when you are performing a critique, not when you're addressing a complaint from someone who unwillingly made your business money.

Re: Plagiarism

#36

Post by swanson »

zeedotme wrote: post #9

Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…

Personally, if I were the author, I would want the portion that was pasted in to be styled (gray bg/italic text etc) as a quote. To me, it seems like the next two paragraphs are presented as a summary of what Joshua found, not the whole post verbatim. If you really wanted to get on my good side, the first sentence would contain a link to the original.

When I wrote a post that LifeHacker was interested in posting, they asked first about "republishing". When I said they could link with an excerpt but not do a whole-sale repost, they respected my decision.

That being said, I don't think this particular article is that egregious. TNW nearly doubled the word count, so it's not a one-liner + copy/paste job. It's certainly not as bad as other sites I've seen that will masquerade as if the author originally posted the story to their site or not link at all.

Re: Plagiarism

#37

Post by scott_s »

zeedotme wrote: post #28
Braasch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author should have put quotes around the paragraphs that were blatantly copy and only slightly tweaked to show it came directly from the piece and wasn't written by Harrison. Oh, and your Twitter response was laughably immature to me.

that I can appreciate, but to come out and call it "plagiarism" publicly although we couldn't have done more to reference him...is absurd to me. Feels like this guy is trolling every single one of us here - myself included - to get a reaction.

If I say, "This text is from John Doe," and then I proceed to quote John Doe to the point that the majority of my text is, in fact, John Doe's, then I have plagiarized John Doe.

In other words, attribution does not save you from plagiarism.

Re: Plagiarism

#38

Post by jacquesm »

zeedotme wrote: post #9

Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…

> Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here.

Since you asked:

Ask the original author if it would be ok to include his contribution in your derived work.

> I honestly [] absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which he conveniently didn't include in his post))...and still he comes out guns blazing like he wrote a full-on opinion piece and we decided to just copy/paste.

Crediting someone does not automatically give you the right to copy their work without their permission. That's a misplaced sense of entitlement, and one I would definitely not accept from a site with the visibility of TNW.

Would it be ok with you if I copied TNW and linked back to your pages to credit you? No? Why not? Where would you draw the line of what is acceptable and what is not?

Oh, and you did just copy/paste.

> We work immensely ha[r]d to product original content

So don't cut-and-paste interesting bits you find on the web.

> I'm honestly amazed that this is crawling up Hacker News quite frankly.

The Next Web is featured on HN quite frequently, so it is logical that any criticism of your website would feature here as well. And I wouldn't call it crawling, you've got top billing.

I'm honestly amazed that you did this, and how utterly wrong your stance is. For a person associated with a publication I would expect a much higher level of knowledge of things like 'how to cite' and 'how to attribute' and maybe a dash of copyright 101. How hard is it to ask someone if you can use their stuff? Just ask, worst case they'll say no and then you can always simply link to them to make your point. It's not like he's suing you for $125K per copy, he's just upset that you didn't have the common courtesy to ask.

The fact that people usually are not upset and that people don't care does not change a thing with respect to what's right or not and asking is the normal thing to do.

I've had my content cut-and-pasted so often that I no longer care but it seems to me that if you want to write original content you should simply write rather than try to pick up which bits are trending on certain websites to re-package those for a larger audience. Besides the fact that it does not say much for how you produce your content it also shows that you don't even bother to do your own fact checking. You could easily be set up to parrot incorrect data like this.

Do your own homework, write your own text supported by facts that you have researched yourself and cite your sources. That is original content.

Re: Plagiarism

#39

Post by Braasch »

zeedotme wrote: post #28
Braasch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author should have put quotes around the paragraphs that were blatantly copy and only slightly tweaked to show it came directly from the piece and wasn't written by Harrison. Oh, and your Twitter response was laughably immature to me.

that I can appreciate, but to come out and call it "plagiarism" publicly although we couldn't have done more to reference him...is absurd to me. Feels like this guy is trolling every single one of us here - myself included - to get a reaction.

But that's the thing: you didn't do more, and that's the problem here.

I don't see him as a troll. I see him as a guy who posted something he put a lot of effort into and ended up having his work reposted without even being justly credited. He has every right to be upset and share his story, and people deserve to know this.

P.S. Just stop with the Tweets, it's embarrassing not only you, but the publication you represent.

Re: Plagiarism

#40

Post by [deleted] »

zeedotme wrote: post #9

Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…

[deleted]
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