Requests: Plagiarism Reviews [M]

[Aethan]

This is just hilarious. Of course there are real-life references in every particracy post. Damn, we use real-life pictures of politicans and other people. Is that also plagiarism, Aquinas?

Of course, many of the posts we post on the forum include real references because that is what we rely on to write them. That a specific paragraph (as in the case of my post on the flu) is considered in this type of forum, in which we come to enjoy the game, as "plagiarism", it's pretty funny. Congrats, Sherlock, and good luck in your witch hunt. This is the only comment I'm going to do regarding this issue, as Reddy has said it pretty well.

[ChengherRares1]

I gotta say, witch hunt is not alright. If plagiarism is bad does not justify witch hunting.

[Zanz]

@moderation, can we possibly delete all the posts based on wording around "witch hunts"? They're not adding value to the thread (which moderation has acted on and which is therefore obviously valuable), they're worrisomely coordinated in their wording and content (indicating an effort to discredit the thread, which, again, is merely pointing out rule breaches), and, most importantly, they're silly trivializations of what's happening here - the witch hunts of human history were based on false allegations and anti-female prejudice. The content provided in this thread has all been obvious or at least possible plagiarism, and he has presented it to be ultimately judged by moderation. If you end up finding some of it to be not plagiarized, that's fine, but it remains the case that this "witch hunt" has found quite a few witches, considerably more than found in Salem, to extend the metaphor, and it's nonsense to pretend that it's not a rule breach need correction now and an ethics breach forever just because a particular instance might have occurred a while ago.

[Reddy]

Very few of those posts can reasonably be defined as plagiarism. I for one would certainly stop RPing if such witch hunts and retroactive justice are the new norm for PT Justice.

[jamescfm]

Moderation has been absolutely clear that plagiarism is not acceptable and that plagiarised content will be removed. Players have every right to provide evidence of plagiarism if they believe that they have found it. I think to refer to this process as a "witch hunt" is unfair and inaccurate. Having reviewed a significant portion of the examples provided in this thread, every post that I have checked so far contained plagiarism. By which I mean taking entire sections of text written by somebody else and re-purposing them for one's own use. I do not mean inspiration or imitation.

At the moment, we have identified 76 posts that were plagiarised, spanning a period of time between April 2017 and June 2020. Over the next few days, we will continue to sort through the reports of plagiarism that have been provided in this thread and make a decision about whether we need to take further action in response to these reports.

Players who have plagiarised in the past should be honest about this and tell us the true extent (privately if they wish) so that we can remove the posts that contain plagiarised content. If it is the case that content reported in this thread does not constitute plagiarism then we will be sure to note that.

[jamescfm]

I locked this thread earlier on the basis that I did not want to allow the reporting of plagiarism to be derailed by arguing between players, especially when that seemed to have led to insults and personal attacks. I apologise if this gave the impression that we were not comfortable with players reporting evidence of alleged plagiarism. If you believe you have found an example of plagiarism then you are free to bring that to Moderation, including publicly if you believe that it is necessary to do so. I am unlocking the thread, on the understanding that players should not resort to throwing insults at each other.

[Yolo04]

I fail to see how copying the hardware specs of a certain phone is plagiarism. I fail to see the plagiarism in making IG equivalence of IRL monuments. I fail to see the plagiarism in copying an economic plan from a real life nation.

Whilst we continuously hunt down the EVIL PLAGIARIZERS, our standards for what is classified as plagiarism have fallen to such an extent, that it would be impossible for anyone to make RP posts about specific pieces of technology, because you’d be forced to make up completely new specs for it (which almost no one in PT has the knowledge on).

This is, regardless of how much you wanna disagree on that term Aquinas, James, or Zanz, slowly descending into a witch-hunt. Hunting down plagiarized post, as if this where the Inquisition, demanding ever increasingly severe punishments…whether you like it or not, you’ve turned what was at first, a relatively menial thing, into a full on crusade.

For God’s sake and for the sake of the rest of the players who just want to play the damn game, stop intentionally lowering your standards for what counts as plagiarism and stop posting the plagiarized posts publicly.

I know you won’t give a damn what my opinion is, but it’s there just so you can screech about how I’m wrong and/or a dumbass.

[Aquinas]

I fail to see how copying the hardware specs of a certain phone is plagiarism. I fail to see the plagiarism in making IG equivalence of IRL monuments. I fail to see the plagiarism in copying an economic plan from a real life nation.

Whilst we continuously hunt down the EVIL PLAGIARIZERS, our standards for what is classified as plagiarism have fallen to such an extent, that it would be impossible for anyone to make RP posts about specific pieces of technology, because you’d be forced to make up completely new specs for it (which almost no one in PT has the knowledge on).

This is, regardless of how much you wanna disagree on that term Aquinas, James, or Zanz, slowly descending into a witch-hunt. Hunting down plagiarized post, as if this where the Inquisition, demanding ever increasingly severe punishments…whether you like it or not, you’ve turned what was at first, a relatively menial thing, into a full on crusade.

For God’s sake and for the sake of the rest of the players who just want to play the damn game, stop intentionally lowering your standards for what counts as plagiarism and stop posting the plagiarized posts publicly.

I know you won’t give a damn what my opinion is, but it’s there just so you can screech about how I’m wrong and/or a dumbass.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8799&p=162628#p162628

[alaskancrabpuffs21]

This is getting out of hand... It is making me sick to my stomach and making me get fed up with this game... Toxic threads are getting so old, if it was a cheese you could smell it across the Entire Northern Hemisphere... This toxic thread has done more damage in the past 12 hours than the mod fiasco a few years back ever did. Luis stalled and stopped the best rp event this game has had in a long time. Players are sick and tired of this BS... I know I am. I went from being excited for all the rp and such because, I have a large economy. I have worked on Dolgavia getting it from rags to riches over a period of 6 months. I should be feeling proud of my work instead... I feel empty, drained as fellow role players if guilty or not are getting bamboozled by baseless attacks. The issue is dead, the issue is dead.... You are quickly going to loss a lot of players if this Spanish Inquisition and or WITCH HUNT continues... Please do not silence our opinions because we don't agree...... My patience for this is running out very quickly... Your claims of "plagiarism" point out pictures and such. Well all the world leaders I have used. I must be plagiarism too... We are not getting paid for this. There is not monetary value in this. Why does this matter??? The teachers weren't always right. Plagiarism is your' hill to die on as the rest of PT crumbles around you. If this is what you want. So be it...........

[jamescfm]

As mentioned in the other thread, let's keep this for actual reports of plagiarism and use that to discuss the matter.