Plagiarism • Hacker News Board

Re: Plagiarism

#51

Post by praptak » Mon, May 14, 2012, 8:02 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #20

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 issue is you did not credit him initially. Are you saying that he was credited in the initial publication of the article and his screenshots that show this is not the case are fabricated?

This. It makes a huge difference whether you credit someone right from the beginning or just after he points it out to you.

Re: Plagiarism

#52

Post by ellyagg » Mon, May 14, 2012, 8:02 PM UTC

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.

False dilemma. The third and correct option is "don't be a dick".

Re: Plagiarism

#53

Post by ptmx » Mon, May 14, 2012, 8:02 PM UTC

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…

Here's my impression of the sequence of events, based on the blog post:

1) You post an article which includes several facts that are taken directly from Joshua's article. No credit is given to the original author.

2) Joshua publicly calls you out on this.

3) You quickly edit in a credit and a link to the original article.

4) With the awareness that future readers will see this credit and assume that Joshua is making an unfounded complaint, you send a series of aggressive tweets attacking him for bringing this issue up.

Now, it's possible that this isn't an accurate timeline, and now would be a good time for you to clarify what happened. But understand that the issue here isn't (entirely) the fact that you paraphrased another person's article; it's that it looks like you didn't give him credit, acted very deceptively to conceal that fact and save face, and that you did so in a particularly childish way.

Re: Plagiarism

#54

Post by sasha-dv » Mon, May 14, 2012, 8:03 PM UTC

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.

Well, besides writing an original content or asking the original author for permission to republish the article:

1. Don't copy an article word for word. Change the words and the structure.

2. Once caught, don't back-paddle and be defensive. Apologize.

Re: Plagiarism

#55

Post by Mz » Mon, May 14, 2012, 8:03 PM UTC

Not defending this at all but I am reminded of my experience doing some freelance writing. I wrote a number of health articles. Several referenced published standard guidelines on how much exercise a person needs per week. In spite of stating the reference and altering the phrasing, I had articles come back to me for revision on the idea that I had copied and pasted some article I had never heard of which happened to also use the same source and cite the same figures.

Not the same thing as what happened here but I can relate to the situation. I think it is generally getting tough to avoid, given the sheer volume of material going up on the web.

Re: Plagiarism

#56

Post by zeedotme » Mon, May 14, 2012, 8:03 PM UTC

andos wrote: post #34

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].…

funnily enough...that is actually exactly what just happened and I literally (only seconds ago) discovered it. Will be putting a piece up about it soon.

Re: Plagiarism

#57

Post by tomasien » Mon, May 14, 2012, 8:04 PM UTC

This isn't plagiarism. It's laughable to say that it was, they cited him. I know this is an insanely simple comment that will lead people to think I didn't read this conversation or really think about this topic, but I did. And it's not. The internet is ridiculous sometimes.

Re: Plagiarism

#58

Post by idiot900 » Mon, May 14, 2012, 8:04 PM UTC

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.

You copied and pasted the article and changed a few words, then made it look like Harrison Weber wrote the text, even though he did not. The attribution is great but in this case not enough.

Either the text should have been created independently, or it should have been made clear that it was a direct quote (fair use) from Gross.

You should have learned why this was wrong in high school.

Re: Plagiarism

#59

Post by scott_s » Mon, May 14, 2012, 8:04 PM UTC

atakan_gurkan wrote: post #43

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…

Plagiarism is not about copyright, it is about citing properly. A direct quote has to be indicated as such, a paraphrasing has to include a reference. I learned this in my freshman year in college, this is so basic that an "editor" cannot claim ignorance of these rules.

Fundamentally, plagiarism is about passing someone else's work off as your own. Note that this is possible even if you cite that work.

Re: Plagiarism

#60

Post by anonymouspie » Mon, May 14, 2012, 8:04 PM UTC

TheNextWeb is basically a content farm whose business model is to rapidly push out rewritten posts as soon as possible and as often as possible. Your story doesn't surprise me at all because I see it every single day with many other websites, both popular and not. All you have to do is look at Techmeme to see this in action, every single post is rewritten by some TNW writer, and sadly Techmeme's human curators favor TheNextWeb as a preferred source despite their post model being 100% spinning of existing content. The best case scenario - if the original creator is lucky - is a tiny link to the original source in the footer of a TNW spun article.

To be fair, Huffington Post, Mashable, etc, do the same thing.