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Plagiarism

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Re: Plagiarism

#241

Post by nikcub »

ilamont wrote: post #225
pitdesi wrote: post #138

There needs to be some sort of standard for citing other peoples work, sort of like an updated Chicago Manual of Style ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citation#Citation_styles ) for online publications. These days we have all these content mills that put out very little original work... I don't know what the proper method should be, how much work you can take etc. Also remember this - The New York Times spent weeks wr…

Former journalist here. Some years ago I attempted to create a standard called "Source Blocks" (see http://www.ilamont.com/2008/11/my-new-journalism-experiment.... ). It's basically a paragraph of explanatory text that the author places at the end of the article, identifying what sources he/she used in the course of researching the article. It looked something like this. Sources cited, referenced, or consulted: Blog.…

similar ideas are announced every few months and have been for the past decade+

most recent:

http://curatorscode.org/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/business/media/guidelines-...

there are two real and practical solutions to this problem:

1. what you are witnessing in this very thread. it works.

2. an idea that I am advocating which is that sources are marked up as microdata:

http://schema.org/CreativeWork

Google and other search engines then take this into account in rankings, as do social media sites, etc. creates a machine readable hierarchy of attribution

this gets discussed endlessly and i've switched off from the conversation, I am more interested in getting google, twitter et al to support the microdata, the publishers and CMS providers will fall into line thereafter

Re: Plagiarism

#242

Post by lotharbot »

eli wrote: post #238
lotharbot wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's our way of voicing very clear disagreement. Anyone who wants to read his words still can.

You think otherwise he might not know people disagree? Voting really shouldn't be punitive to people with unpopular opinions.

I think otherwise he might not realize the breadth and depth at which this community disagrees with him. He is not merely expressing an unpopular opinion, he's demonstrated an inability to grasp certain basic concepts. Don't think of it as punitive; think of it as a wake-up call.

Also, according to pg, it is and always has been perfectly fine to downvote people for disagreement: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=392347 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691

Re: Plagiarism

#244

Post by droithomme »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #167
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…

Regardless TNW took his article almost entirely word for word! Only two or three words were added/removed in TNW's version. This isn't about facts, it's about copy-pasting someone else's words and then sending 6 incredibly defensive and dickish tweets after othe original author complained (barely). At the end, Zee says he'll steer clear of the original author's work for fear of ridiculous accusations as if to say "yo…

"You can't even play devils advocate on this one."

Very insightful comment. I don't think they should delete it at this point though which would be covering up what they did at this point.

As far as what to do about this, word for word plagiarism that is barely altered so that it's technically not an exact word search isn't a mistake or momentary slip up by a paid author/journalist/blogger, it's overt plagiarism and fraud. There is absolutely no other thing to be done when it is found but to openly and publicly FIRE the fake "author" who stole another person's work, and issue a public apology to the true author.

That would have resolved it and enabled this company to save face and appear on the up and up.

The handling by the CEO was so abysmal and so wrong here though that it destroyed the entire reputation of the site. His continuing to trying to spin and lie is just an embarrassment to himself, his reputation is ruined.

As far as whoever owns this company, at this point the only thing they could possibly do to recover at all is to fire both the CEO and the plagiarist and issue a public, heartfelt, sincere apology.

Re: Plagiarism

#245

Post by mikecane »

scott_s wrote: post #59
atakan_gurkan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

For those who are confused about what plagiarism looks like, here's an example from 1918:

Plagiarism In 1918 http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/plagiarism-in-1918...

Looks awfully similar to Plagiarism in 2012.

Re: Plagiarism

#246

Post by mikecane »

I think there is an overarching issue here because I've experienced it myself several times.

1) Person writes about something out of passion and posts it for free (the blog carries no ads)

2) Person who gets paid to write reads it, has no record of ever writing about that topic before, and then does his/her own take -- hitting all the same key points (including using quotes from others that were in the original post) making him/her look like a thinker.

3) Original person is never cited, never acknowledged, while paid person merrily collects paycheck for "work."

Having experienced it firsthand, I at least know several people never to take seriously as "thinkers" ever again.

Re: Plagiarism

#247

Post by talaketu »

scott_s wrote: post #59
atakan_gurkan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

I agree with your 1st sentence, but not your 2nd. Citation is the act of declaring a source.

http://web.mit.edu/academicintegrity/citing/whatandwhy.html

(To be honest, I got this link from wikipedia :)

Re: Plagiarism

#248

Post by ktizo »

dkokelley wrote: post #203
sparknlaunch12 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange that this has been greyed out? Not condoning the act of plagiarism but seems fairer to allow all parties to say their bits?

I do wish this wasn't downvoted to grey. This is content I think most of us will find interesting and relevant to the discussion. I understand that HN allows downvotes of disagreement, even though in this case it buries the most relevant information.

Highlight it then and read it. Or change your browser colours.

Re: Plagiarism

#249

Post by ktizo »

joering2 wrote: post #84
scott_s wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I love Zee comment when he tries to teach him that 50% of web is a rewrite. What an asshole! Wonder if an average theft or rapist should be walking around with recent statistics of population being behind bars and why it should be ok to steal or rape.

while he may be being an asshole, your comparison is ridiculous.

Re: Plagiarism

#250

Post by artursapek »

zeedotme wrote: post #154
jacquesm wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really don't get it do you? > If it ever does happen, I assure you that all it takes is one email to office@thenextweb.com and we'll have it resolved. I'm sure it does. But the point is that you should ensure through process and not through policy that you do not end up with other people's stuff on your site without attribution or compensation. The fact that you'll take it down to avoid further damage is not enou…

We do have processes AND policy in place to make sure this doesn't happen. But it can still happen unintentionally and when it does, we react activity and proactively.

You are a hoot.
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