Quality RP or plagiarism?

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Quality RP or plagiarism?

Postby Aquinas » Thu Jun 18, 2020 3:27 am

Auditorii wrote: I mean, I'm not a fan of copy-pasting real life articles, I know players who do it and I know who have done it there is nothing in the rules against it. Personally I think that it cheapens the RP because you're literally copy-pasting, swapping out names and using other peoples work but that's a personal preference.


Auditorii wrote:As for the issue of using real world articles and replacing information, I only know of a handful of players who have/who do it and from my understanding it is limited. I don't really think that the rankings are at all "problematic" or "corrupted" in any way because I can tell you that a vast majority of people that are in the "senior" spots in the rankings simply don't do that. With that being said however, we'd be willing to broach the issue and discuss it. I'm not certain that this is the appropriate topic for it, perhaps a new topic to address such matters.


Following on from Auditorii's comments on another thread, I would like to raise a concern I have - and I know some others have - about the extent to which real life prominent news articles are being plagiarised for use in Particracy RP news threads.

After spending a little bit of time researching, I found a number of examples of plagiarism in the Lourenne newspaper, just over about the last month alone.

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4275&p=159273#p159150
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/0 ... nceh2.html

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4275&start=730#p158724
https://new.abb.com/news/detail/60096/a ... arge-ships

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4275&start=720#p158117
https://www.labiotech.eu/policy-legal-f ... s-biotech/

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4275&start=720#p158151
http://www.paris-europlace.net/files/ra ... lle_en.pdf

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4275&start=710#p157344
https://in.reuters.com/article/us-franc ... NKBN1ZM2G6

Perhaps it is unfair of me to have focused only on Lourenne, but that is all I have had time to look at so far. There are other news threads which I suspect (but cannot confirm) have seen the same phenomenon.

I feel a discussion needs to be had about this.

Should it be okay to post plagiarised news articles?

I say it should not be okay, but if this really is going to be allowed, then players should at least be required to acknowledge the real source of their articles, and those articles should not be taken in to account when it comes to determining the official rankings.
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Re: Quality RP or plagiarism?

Postby Yolo04 » Thu Jun 18, 2020 3:59 am

Of the posts you all mention, you could find five of them being plagiarized, to some degree. Now, Luis posts a hell of a lot. The dude has made three or four posts today alone. So, no I’m not surprised that, to fill his RP list, he probably did plagiarize a bit. But I think we’re all forgetting that each and every one of us has probably plagiarized articles when we where on a time crunch. I’ve plagiarized some articles when I thought- “Eh, fuck it, I’ll just copy something”, and that was when I made two articles a day. So to jump on Luis, when the dude makes 20-30+ articles a month is a bit unfair.

Ultimately, people get into time crunches for when they want to do RP. Plagiarism doesn’t hurt a damn soul, contrary to what the education system will screech at you, and unless it’s RP that was ABSOLUTELY VITAL in changing a nations rank, it shouldn’t really matter that much.
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Re: Quality RP or plagiarism?

Postby Luis1p » Thu Jun 18, 2020 4:00 am

Alright, since I'm being put on the spot here I guess it's fair to respond. Yes, I take writing from other sources and put it in my posts, sure, call it plagiarism. I do take these shortcuts, usually because A), I am backed up with other posts, or B) I'm backed up IRL. I haven't based my entire time in PT on plagiarism lol. Like I said, they're shortcuts that I take when I'm backed up IRL. And in these trying times, my shit's all over the place. Currently, most of the posts Aquinas linked were "pre-made" and were plagiarized. Again referring to my points above, RL. I'm not supporting or what I did, nor do I want others to either. I'm acknowledging this issue in my posts and accepting it as is. I acknowledge that I shouldn't have plagiarized from these sources.

If people would like see them deleted, by all means do so, I really don't care, perhaps I could remove them myself. I also didn't do it to necessarily "boost" myself in any way in the rankings. I mean, I'm happy where my nation is and where I've lead it for the past years. Again, I don't expect any rankings to change because of them.

Now when we talk about the whole issue, you'd have to scan every article posted by every player in the past and present to ensure that there is no plagiarism. How will we know someone plagiarized, even just a single sentence? I'm not going to rummage into other people's posts in the past month like the police to ensure that it's all original. A) that's a waste of my time and B)I have better things to do. Yet, it persists.

Will Moderation have to police everyone and "scan" their posts? I mean, even outside of my RP, I've seen it been done perhaps a couple of times, but I mean, I don't know if anyone really "cares" about some type of "inspiration" from other sources? Not to sound rude or anything or be dismissive of the issue. Sure, it's unoriginal but what will really be done about it?

Perhaps changing the rules to ensure plagiarism isn't done? And back to my point, how will that be enforced? Will it be enforced?
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Re: Quality RP or plagiarism?

Postby Rogue » Thu Jun 18, 2020 7:49 am

I find the point Aquinas makes a very good one. Honestly im kinda suprised about the answers given here by you Luis. Does it hurt anyone when you plagarise a article or chunks of it? Yes it does. Personally i have never plagarised a single post, sentence or word in my newsposts. They have all been original works that i enjoyed making and made time for even if my RL situation was a bit more hectic.

Pumping out 4 to 5 articles a day is no excuse to plagarise some. Personally i have been making 4 posts (and yesterday 5) per day the last week or so and still i make it all original. The thing some seem to forget is that posts dont have to be long. If they are to the point, outline the general information and possibly throw in a little joke its all good. Makes it easier to read as well.

So yes. If you plagarise or however you wanna call it it does hurt some people. You say you dont do it for the rankings but you kinda do, whats the fun in making a post if you havent made it yourself? If you dont post it for the rankings what do you post it for then? Furthermore people like me who write 100% original posts are gonna feel kinda discouraged. You do your best to research and write your post, it may not look as professional at times but you do your best. And then the day after a massive post with full details and a high degree of proffesionalism gets posted and you find out its plagarized, that kinda hurts.

I have nothing against you personally Luis, you know we can get along. But i do think plagarizing articles should be stopped as it is a form of cheating the system in my honest opinion. No, you dont have to search every single article, but some posts you just have that feeling "yeah this is off" and a simple google search can get you a long way.
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Re: Quality RP or plagiarism?

Postby Luis1p » Thu Jun 18, 2020 8:28 am

Again, going back to what I said above. I've acknowledged that the plagiarizing shouldn't have been done and I'm sure I'm not the only one. That's it, I'll edit or delete the posts. That's all. No need to be discouraged by something I did and that I recognized shouldn't been done. Not to mean your feelings don't matter, I know what you mean and don't mean for you to get today or anything, but I think the way it's approached in the future should be the bigger focus.

--> Going back to the original post, I just want to know how any plagiarism in the future is going to be spotted, avoided and prevented. As well as enforced, of course once everyone agrees that it shouldn't be done in the first place.
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Re: Quality RP or plagiarism?

Postby Liu Che/Zhuli » Thu Jun 18, 2020 12:20 pm

I think a reasonable solution could be an honors system, like at many universities and colleges. You could establish a rule banning plagiarism. Every player would be assumed to be following the rule, unless specific cases are brought to Moderation's attention. Enforcing the rule would follow normal procedures.

In terms of determining plagiarism, I think one "knows it when one sees it" if compared to a real world article. Obviously, for some current cases, determination has been a simple Google search and noting that passages and quotes have been lifted from real articles. Inspiration from reality is perfectly fine and reasonable. We all do this. I think the real issue is directly lifting someone else's words, quotes or other text.

And for a small degree of reassurance, this issue does not pertain to one player.

For those native users of English, we all know plagiarism is dishonest, unethical, and possibly illegal in certain circumstances. We should not condone it for these reasons, not to mention the reputational risk it could pose to Wouter's enterprise. I think everyone could agree to this.
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Re: Quality RP or plagiarism?

Postby jamescfm » Thu Jun 18, 2020 1:30 pm

Aquinas, Mr.God and Liu Che have said most of what I think on the matter. Like I said in the other thread, my primary response to this situation is that I just find it depressing. The current rankings system and the structure of the World Congress are explicitly set up to provide certain countries with a dominant position in role-play. I don't have a problem with this situation per se and it has never been my desire to play as a global hegemon at any rate.

Even so it increasingly feels like the rankings and the World Congress are distorting the role-play environment instead of improving it. In the past, we did of course have occasions where players would claim without basis that they had nuclear weapons or aircraft carriers or whatever but to be quite honest, it did not make any major difference to the main role-play community. If the price of preventing that behaviour is that we end up with players openly excusing plagiarism on the basis that those who engage in it "post a hell of a lot" then it seems to me we have lost sight of the whole point of role-play in the first place.

I don't really have answers to how we change things but it does seem obvious that an explicit commitment from Moderation that plagiarism is not acceptable would be a good starting point.
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Re: Quality RP or plagiarism?

Postby Reddy » Thu Jun 18, 2020 3:37 pm

First of all, thanks to Aquinas for noticing and bringing this to attention. This is not only disgusting but as Liu pointed out, can attract significant legal penalties for Wouter as the guy responsible for this site. I strongly support the proposed rule. Depressingly, this is not the first time this kind of thing has happened, in one memorable incident, there was a player who plagiarised other players' old posts.

I share James' concerns about the ranking system and would go further and call for it to be abolished entirely. I have stronger faith in the informal regulation system that players used to have and I think we have seen many occasions in the past where certain players have retained their high rankings through whining rather than through decent RP. Too often nowadays you have to muck through a ton of garbage posts directed at manipulating the rankings and little else
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Re: Quality RP or plagiarism?

Postby Auditorii » Thu Jun 18, 2020 4:07 pm

As always we appreciate the comments and concerns, Vesica and I are discussing our own positions internally. As I stated, I've never been supportive of it and I know people have done it and continue to do it. We've never had a position or policy on it but I think it might be best to form one.

I can state that we have no intention of abolishing the rankings in any matter.
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Re: Quality RP or plagiarism?

Postby Auditorii » Thu Jun 18, 2020 4:26 pm

This is something Vesica and I came up with. Any ideas or additions?

Roleplay posts (notably newspaper posts) must contain a majority of original content. The total plagiarization of real world articles, texts with Particracy-relevant material added in roleplay posts is prohibited.


The only other thing I think that could be added is something like:

-- a. The usage or real world informational material to provide explanations for Particracy equivalents is permitted but subject to review.
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