Tic Tac Toe
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It's a Steve Jones day at SQLServerCentral.com. I'd written the first article in a new series and was looking forward to it coming out when I had to write today's apology to Ken Henderson yesterday and get that out.
I almost moved the article, but thought, hey, make it a Steve Jones day with an article, an apology, and an editorial :). Tic-tac-toe, three in a row for me.
Unfortunately, it's not a pleasant three. The plagiarism was stunning to me. I couldn't for the life of my figure out why someone would do it and why bother. It's not like you're going to get rich writing articles for us. I know I haven't. And it's not like you don't have a decent chance of getting caught here. This is a huge community and there's a decent chance that if you've repeated someone's work, that it will get noticed. Especially if you write a popular article.
Intellectual property is such a huge news item these days that I'm surprised someone even tried it. And the author's explanation didn't make sense, that he thought it was the same material, but better written by Ken Henderson, so just send in Ken's version. I'm still stunned and glad that Mr. Henderson has been understanding about this.
I'm not sure what I could do differently. A full-text search, such as the Look Inside feature from Amazon, might not catch things if a few words here and there are changed. And I certainly don't want to send the text of every article that's submitted through a search engine.
It's kind of a sad day to have to deal with this topic. I only hope by putting it out there publicly with an apology that we can prevent others from trying it in the future.
Steve Jones
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seems to me there's not much you can do to prevent something like this...however, instead of a lenient approach (1, 2, 3 strikes you're out...) - if indeed you, Andy and Brian adopt this approach - include a clause in your article submission template (or whatever you use) - having the writer sign off on "I swear by all I hold dear that these words are my own and no one elses'...." and if still found to be a defaulter...then banish from the kingdom of ssc.com to begin with...& publicise it as much as you can!
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
Did the "writer" understand the implications of plagiarism? Only reason I point this out is my wife helped tutor a student (7th grader) this year who hadn't been taught what plagiarism was. Came as quite a shock to both me and my wife as I remember getting taught that when I was in third grade and my wife remembered also learning it in elementary school.
Once the implications of plagiarism were explained to said students, you could see the light bulb come on as the look of horror came across her face. But until it was clearly explained, it didn't occur to said student what she was doing was all that wrong. After all, she had been indoctrinated to copy questions straight out of the book and then finding the answers in the same book and copying them verbatim.
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley -
Brian - I'm sure that that 7th grader is an exception...not the rule!
Anybody who has even remotely dreamed of authoring something is well aware of the distinctions between originality, poetic license & quoting verbatim!
something funny I heard on NPR today that seems appropriate in this context:
"quote from one man - it's called plagiarism;
quote from many - it's called research!"
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
I would have thought so, too, but I've heard of others having similar experiences. Research in general she was very weak on... but the public school curriculum where she's at doesn't teach 'em how to use basic research tools.
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley -
"Anybody who has even remotely dreamed of authoring something is well aware of the distinctions between originality, poetic license & quoting verbatim!"
Several years ago I found a copy of a paper I had written in an obscure academic journal which one of my professors had claimed as his own. I guess he just forgot to add me as a co-author.
In a recent class a student turned in a paper that had been written by the professor who was teaching the class. I guess he was in too much of a hurry to actually read the paper before turning it in. 
I agree with your earlier post individuals should agree that the works they are publishing are their own and if they violate this agreement they should be banned. However, everyone who writes or programs will occasionally find himself or herself using a passage or piece of code that they know is not their own but are unable to find the source. While these occasional lapse are technically plagiarism I think some judgment should be applied in these cases. Or perhaps we could just attribute them to a highly placed source that wished to remain anonymous.
Mike
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Steve,
<quote> The plagiarism was stunning to me. I couldn't for the life of my figure out why someone would do it and why bother. <end quote>
Why do people cheat at anything? To get an advantage over others. Whether the advantage is monetary or just 'feel good', it's still an advantage and the easy way out. I play golf. I don't play for money, just for fun. Yet almost everytime I play, I see someone cheating on their score. Why? Because they can claim they got a lower score than me and get a 'feel good' advantage.
You did well with your apology and I like to believe that most people are understanding. Neither you nor SQLServerCentral were at fault and I'm sure Ken understands this. You did your best to rectify the problem when you found out about it.
Plagerism is one of the hardest things to catch. Just the number of books makes it impossible to really catch this easily. Then add in all the magazines, software, on-line writings and you could devote a whole staff and still not catch everything. You have to count on others helping you catch it and that's what happened in this case.
I'm not amazed at all by the actions taken. I've come to expect SQLServerCentral, it's employees and the majority of users to do the RIGHT THING.
-SQLBill
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What is NPR?
And I'll put an O in the center square.
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National Public Radio...
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
So It's Steve Jones Day after all
... I should get credit for that...
or is it the .... "anything posted in the site becomes property of SSC.com, epspecially Sushila's and Remi's posts, and you give up your rights to your words, thoughts, desires and crayons to SSC.com and but its given especially to Steve Jones, for he needs a new set of crayons."
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LOL....stream of consciousness at its' best....
GPF....your mind is beginning to wander - gather your thoughts quickly and try to put them in some cohesive order...and most importantly - "stay on topic dude"..(quote from green lantern in another post...)
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
I absolutely love NPR - It's one of the best, most in depth and objective media resources available in the US. Worlds away from Fox News (or Faux News as it's known in France, or so I hear).
Circle does not get the square.
GPF - you're still trolling for that T-Shirt I see?
My hovercraft is full of eels.
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sswords - not to get sucked into the digressive path (how long could it have lasted anyway...) but nothing like BBC to give everyone a run for their money...as for Fox it's spurious at best and voyeuristic trash at worst (gag!)...
ps: I think if Steve doesn't give GPF the shirt we should all make him - don't think anyone else's worked as hard to get one...
why does circle not get the square ?!
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
Because Triangle got it first.
As for the shirt, I'm sure we could spray paint SSC on a t-shirt and mail it to GPF.
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley -
oh shushy you love the order of my thoughts... dont deny it...
I did not know that objective and media resource could be used in the same sentence.
For our library of human knowledge is just "a subjective interpetation of a temporal nature"1 and therefore reporting on such would only ever result in that.
As for that t-shirt I think have one on the way, but I'm suspecting there having trouble getting one in tent size and with a hood to hide my ugly mug.
And circle gets the sqaure.
1 Someone smarter and or drunker than I have known to be or been.
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