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Plagiarism

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Re: Plagiarism

#121

Post by droithomme »

scott_s wrote: post #13

Yes, you were plagiarized. TheNextWeb was in the wrong, and they made it worse by their reaction. But I also feel that the main insights of your posts were not your own. They were that of the NY Times reporter Michael M. Grynbaum. That is, I feel the main insight of your post were two things: the doubling of tips, and the attribution of this to the buttons on the credit-card machine. Your contribution was to look up…

I think you bring up a reasonable point: that the forced tipping system with no values below 20% was previously discussed in other articles such as that of Grynbaum from January 8, 2012:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/nyregion/new-nyc-livery-ca...

In fact it's not a secret at all since New Yorkers and those visiting the city are quite acquainted with the system, it's no secret, so I am not sure Mr. Grynbaum is a reasonable original source of information about the system, millions who have taken a taxi are reasonable sources.

Worth mentioning is the article on the usability blog from which Mr. Gross hotlinked his image of the interface, dating back to February 2011:

http://goodexperience.com/2011/02/how-a-taxi-button-cha.php

Their reaction was similar to many others, that a design that forces a minimum tip of 20% is an annoying dodgy system for forcible shakedowns of hapless credit card customers, and sure to enrage many people.

GoodExperience's blog's conclusion was nearly the opposite of Mr. Gross's:

> The lesson: details matter. One change to one button in the interface changes the experience from delightful to annoying, leaving the rider feeling taken advantage of.

The cab customers are the victims here, they are in essence a captive audience who can not seek competition since the system has been dictated system wide by the same government that profits well from the system since it prevents drivers from underreporting tips.

Mr. Gross's original contribution was to point out that by looking at this from the viewpoint not of the customer, but of the business and the government, the system was a success as it has resulted in much profit for them.

Mr. Gross published this yesterday, on May 13, 2012. TheNextWeb published their "article" a few hours after Gross's article reached high on Hacker News. This is likely where Harrison and Zee became aware of it as it seems they are readers of HN. Harrison's article was then published today, May 14th.

None of the previous articles about the system bring up Mr. Gross's main points, that the design of the system has the advantage of increasing profits for the business.

Not stated but worth discussing is that it only works because there is a captive audience with no other choices who do not discover their tipping options are so limited until they go to pay at the end of the ride. These issues would make interesting discussions for even more articles. Perhaps TNW could have even written one. Instead they copied an article, stole it, because I have personally compared the articles word by word and found that it is a LIE to say TNW published original content or that the article was truly written by Harrison.

Under Fair Use I am now citing BOTH for comparison lest there be any doubt.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE BY JOSHUA GROSS:

> The average New York City taxi cab driver makes $90,747 in revenue per year. There are roughly 13,267 cabs in the city. In 2007, NYC forced cab drivers to begin taking credit cards, which involved installing a touch screen system for payment.

> During payment, the user is presented with three default buttons for tipping: 20%, 25%, and 30%. When cabs were cash only, the average tip was roughly 10%. After the introduction of this system, the tip percentage jumped to 22%.

HARRISON WEBER's ALLEGED ORIGINAL CONTENT, DEFENDED AS ORIGINAL BY ZEE KANE:

> The average New York City taxi driver makes $90,747 in gross revenue per year (less some hefty operating expenses). In 2007, NYC required cab drivers to begin accepting cards, which involved installing a touch screen system for payment in all ~13,267 cars.

> During payment, users are shown three default buttons for tipping: 20%, 25% and 30%. Back when cabs were cash-only, the average tip was around a modest 10%. But since this system was introduced system, the average tipping percentage jumped to 22%.

Who here will respond to this post and claim that Harrison Weber is not an unrepentant plagiarist and Zee Kane his belligerent defender? Speak now.

Re: Plagiarism

#122

Post by learc83 »

chc wrote: post #75
_dark_matter_ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to be rude here, but as the CEO of an online magazine, why can't you write with correct grammar? "I honestly absolutely no idea…" "work immensely had to product"

They're called typos. Everybody makes them — even professional writers. In writing that's intended to make money, they're usually caught in editing. If you yourself write without ever producing a typo, that's nice, but it's not really all that important to the craft of writing — much less to owning a business that employs writers. At any rate, I don't see any reason to expect perfect prose in an informal context like…

Typos are fine, but there is a limit. I read through some of his comments here, and there are enough typos that it makes it fairly annoying to read.

Slow down just a bit and read it over before you post. You'll still make mistakes, but not in every other post.

Re: Plagiarism

#123

Post by davidw »

nikcub wrote: post #119
davidw wrote: post #71

Where are all the people defending "piracy" on this post? How much effort were a few paragraphs that got copied vs how much effort does it take to produce a movie, or a professionally recorded song?

The equivalent would be cutting the credits off a movie and replacing them with release group name and scene shoutouts.

The point being, whenever there is an article about "piracy" - being this sort of generic, "victimless" action (say "crime" and people will really go apeshit on you) - and people fall over themselves to defend it, say it's not a problem, indicate that it's just a symptom and fuck the content people if they can't deal, and so on.

It's interesting that when it's just one person with their own story, that is somehow closer to HN, it seems to either change opinions, or bring out a different set of commentors. This despite the in question few paragraphs being orders of magnitude less effort to produce than a lot of the content that is typically "pirated".

(Note all the downvotes with nary a response)

Re: Plagiarism

#124

Post by benthumb »

The plagiarizer hasn't taken the care to assimilate an idea well enough so he can put it into his own words. The effort put into explaining something in one's own words has the powerful effect of spurring the imagination and intellect, which then can lead to new insights. The question is does Action Man care? Clearly not. Talk about steering clear of something -- thanks for the unintended warning.

Re: Plagiarism

#125

Post by phreanix »

ianterrell wrote: post #72
timjahn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do employees (and apparently CEOs) of online tech publications always seem to have so much trouble with basic English grammar/spelling? "I honestly absolutely no idea what we should have done differently" "We work immensely had to product original content"

I have a theory on this point, after witnessing this effect in a few other places (emails from prominent writers, CEOs, etc). Writers write so much that their fear of shipping their writing is diminished through practice, so they write, ship, write, ship, write, ship. They're in creative mode, just putting words on the paper. They're busy, so they go quickly, so that they can get more done. They know that when it mat…

That's the problem though. These 'writers' tend to demand respect and be acknowledged as journalists, yet can't even proof their own words. I don't think I've gone gone through a day where I don't find grammar and spelling errors on high volume news sites like HuffPo and Techcrunch.

I think when you have such a high profile and mass visibility, the bar for quality is raised higher (or should be), even in the context of speed posting and scoops. Your product influences a generation that is sadly forgetting and ignoring the value of proper grammar.

Re: Plagiarism

#126

Post by mvkel »

evan_ wrote: post #82
mvkel wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and we decided to just copy/paste" You answered your own question. Also, your reaction to the original author via your public tweets was incredibly unprofessional. If you want to respond with such toxic language, you should so do via a private email. You're the face, the vision, the voice of TNW and I now associate your rude remarks with TNW as a whole.

you should read that again, he was saying that they DIDN'T cut and paste, but the original author reacted as though they had

I read it correctly. My point was they _did_ cut and paste. The paragraphs are virtually identical. I was quoting him out of context to illustrate a point that he answered his own question.

Re: Plagiarism

#127

Post by joering2 »

gojomo wrote: post #112

Zee/TheNextWeb has a history of copying others' work without permission, including for one period HN comments. See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=640492 Note that what I was concerned about was not respectful excerpting: for a time, they were scraping every HN comment related to their links back to their site, without permission/notification to authors, without threading, with NOFOLLOW.

Would be great to have a kickstarter for suing dirtbags, like in this example. Classactionstarter or something...

Re: Plagiarism

#128

Post by Xylakant »

davidw wrote: post #71

Where are all the people defending "piracy" on this post? How much effort were a few paragraphs that got copied vs how much effort does it take to produce a movie, or a professionally recorded song?

The question is not whether pirating a movie is morally right or wrong but rather "how much damage to the internet and the society are we willing to accept when chasing people who copy movies?". Having to pay a fine when you're caught copying a song is fine. Having to pay inflated damage claims (tens of thousands of dollars for a single song) is not. Monitoring large portions of the internet only to support an industry that missed a crucial point is not fine either. So that's why no one defending piracy shows up here: Since pretty much no one is defending piracy as "morally right."

(edit: fixed stupid autocorrection errors.)

Re: Plagiarism

#129

Post by Mz »

chc wrote: post #75
_dark_matter_ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to be rude here, but as the CEO of an online magazine, why can't you write with correct grammar? "I honestly absolutely no idea…" "work immensely had to product"

They're called typos. Everybody makes them — even professional writers. In writing that's intended to make money, they're usually caught in editing. If you yourself write without ever producing a typo, that's nice, but it's not really all that important to the craft of writing — much less to owning a business that employs writers. At any rate, I don't see any reason to expect perfect prose in an informal context like…

Unfortunately, in this case, the typos reinforce the idea this person is fundamentally disrespectful. Given that his comments here are part of a PR campaign, he should be taking more care with them in order to make the right impression.

I go by Michele -- with one L. It is my actual middle name. People routinely misspell it with two L's. Sometimes they realize it and apologize for the error. I have found that how someone reacts to being told it is one L says a lot about their character. Decent people are quick to offer sincere apologies. Assholes are quick to use it as a new excuse to piss all over me and make fun of me.

Re: Plagiarism

#130

Post by snowwrestler »

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…

Are you an aggregator or a publication?

If you're an aggregator, then the thing to bring to your readers' attentions is the link to the original blog post. That way you drive traffic to the original content. For good examples of what this looks like, see Hacker News or Techmeme, or any of John Gruber's link posts on Daring Fireball.

If you're a publication, and it seems to me that you're positioning yourself that way, then write your own original stuff. You can still play off stories like this, but the way to do it is to extend the story with your own original reporting. Interview cab drivers about it. Dig out the story of how those buttons got into that interface. Who decided to put them there? Who build the software? Who designed the interface? In other words, add value.

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