January 27, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Earning Credit
January 27, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Writing can be hard.
Heh... I'd have to say it's a real bugger for me. I don't know how you do it everyday. My hat's off to you.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
January 27, 2009 at 9:37 pm
About a year after I started SQL-Server-Performance.Com, somebody "borrowed" my entire website, but they replaced my ads with their ads. This was a very brazen thing to do. But after talking to the attorney of the company hosting my stolen website, it was brought down quickly. I also had additional problems of people borrowing my content on a case-by-case basis, and people sending me articles from other websites. It was a constant problem.
Brad M. McGehee
DBA
January 28, 2009 at 4:11 am
It's a pretty low act. I know that when I'm writing I'm scared to death I might string three or four words together in exactly the same way as someone else. I'd hate to be accused of stealing another person's hard work. I just don't understand why anyone would. Well, I understand, but I can't exactly empathise.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
January 28, 2009 at 5:10 am
We had to submit our final masters’ paper to some service that tried to catch plagiarism.
In that same online program, a fellow student posted lifted a long web article intact without indicating the source at all. When I privately pointed out that he needed to make his attribution clear, he was livid at me and told me to tell the teacher if I had a problem with it, which I did. The teacher reported it to the university. That is the last I heard of it.
Russel Loski, MCSE Business Intelligence, Data Platform
January 28, 2009 at 5:22 am
You can use Copyscape http://www.copyscape.com to detect articles.
Visit:
http://www.kaizenlog.com
http://www.autocar-live.com
http://www.yachting-live.com
January 28, 2009 at 5:39 am
Steve you should have been more suspicious about this guy, he joined two months ago and has only 4 visits to this page and 0 points.
plagiarism is always a bad thing, although, I would like to hear from him what he has to say about this, why did he do it.
-------------------------------------------------------------
"It takes 15 minutes to learn the game and a lifetime to master"
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality."
January 28, 2009 at 5:42 am
Yeah, I would have been curious to hear his side of the story too.
But I wouldn't throw rocks because he had few points when he posted an article. I posted an article long before I was taking part in the forums. And yes, it was my own work too.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
January 28, 2009 at 6:05 am
Domagoj Orec (1/28/2009)
Steve you should have been more suspicious about this guy, he joined two months ago and has only 4 visits to this page and 0 points.plagiarism is always a bad thing, although, I would like to hear from him what he has to say about this, why did he do it.
Nah... not necessarily and indicator of suspicion. I've seen some folks publish articles that still only have <4 visits and zero points.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
January 28, 2009 at 6:19 am
Let us not forget the realm of code.
It's just a easy to steal code and claim that it was our idea.
January 28, 2009 at 6:27 am
Steve - as much as plagiarism is detestable, I would like to commend you for having the class to speak up and let your site devotees know what happened. It was the right thing to do, and it shows your character which is clearly of the highest caliber.
For those who ask "why would someone do this?"... Simple...
The web grants great anonymity, and inept, insecure weenies out there who would rather steal than present and give proper credit where credit is due get to bolster their own self-opinion on the backs of other's work. The best thing you can do is expose them for what they are - and that is what you guys have done. Cudos!
January 28, 2009 at 6:44 am
Jeff Moden (1/28/2009)
Nah... not necessarily and indicator of suspicion. I've seen some folks publish articles that still only have <4 visits and zero points.
Ok, maybe not, but it is kinda weird.
-------------------------------------------------------------
"It takes 15 minutes to learn the game and a lifetime to master"
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality."
January 28, 2009 at 6:48 am
When I saw the "new" article, I noticed that the sub-headings were the same, and just assumed it was a re-post of the older article. Didn't even notice that it had a different source. Very well done to whomever actually went a step further and checked it out and brought it to Steve's attention.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
January 28, 2009 at 7:07 am
Plagerism is one thing. Citing your sources is another. Give credit where due. If you take something verbatim, ie: a definition from wikipedia then provide the direct link and put it in quotes... if you summarize it cite it.
I had a coworker that sent out a massive document and part of it just didn't sit well for me so i google'd one sentence and got the next two pages of his doc. I replied to him asking him to at least cite his sources sending him the links i found. Best part... he cited a different document where someone else borrowed the original content. It can be such a vicious circle yet we wonder why our knowledge gets diluted.
January 28, 2009 at 7:18 am
There is an additional, possibly more serious problem with the copying.
For a moment, let's leave aside the ethical question.
When the folks doing the copying don't know the material well enough, the quality of what's copied can't be assured. Oddly this doesn't seem to be much of a problem in the Sybase world, but in the SQL Server world there's a lot more urban legend.
In my avocation as a musicologist, I see this to a frightening degree. If I Google on a subject I know a great deal about, I will often find that 90% of the articles are largely identical - and that they are significantly wrong! . Even if reworded and reorganized, it's obvious that they all tie back to the same original.
Because the incorrect information gets repeated so often, it appears to carry weight. This also ossifies dated information. For example, most of the performance techniques of the past 20 years are turned on their heads on modern hardware that can run 64 threads at once, with cheap self-balancing JBODs (e.g. using ZFS file systems).
So plagiarism isn't just "wrong" for ethical reasons. It also means the information is being edited by someone who doesn't know the subject, and so incorrect or outdated information is constantly being brought fresh into the "data cache".
Roger L Reid
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