colonelvesica wrote:I'd like to preface this post with a disclaimer; the conversation and topic of the issue of plagiarism has already been spoken about at the highest levels internally between the Moderation Team and Wouter. This topic is, as far as we are concerned, closed thanks to the steps that have been taken to rectify the matter and ensure it doesn't happen again.
So I'll begin first, by thanking Aquinas for the highly detailed Plagiarism Reports he brought forward with the plagiarized post and showing us how serious and widespread the issue was, and how far back it went. I'd also like to thank James for his dedicated work at removing as many of the Plagiarized posts as he has. The vast majority of the plagiarized posts have been removed and we are in the middle of reviewing a final small number of reported examples before they have been completed.
Now onto the topic at hand; first off I would like to echo the comments already made by James, Moderation has mandated and is now enforcing a total No Tolerance Policy in regards to Plagiarism and we will be ensuring players guilty of it in future are sanctioned should anyone be caught doing so again. The players that were found to be mass plagiarizers have been issued significant sanctions. I will not comment on the sanctions specifically, though I'm sure the grapevine already knows much of the details.
On my word of honour, I did not know how widespread and serious the issue was until it brought to light through the Plagiarism Reports. I was actually shocked at the sheer scale of it and how far back it went. The two players in particular that were outed, Maxington and Luis, had always been known to be very detailed and excellent Role Players, much like Mr. God or Kubrick are, and I did not comprehend at how widespread the situation was.
At no point would I ever say I was "okay" with it. The past can't ultimately be changed; only the future. The issue of plagiarism is something we are taking extremely serious and will continue taking serious into the future. As previously mentioned, we have moved forward with a total no tolerance policy, and as suspicion has been brought up about the rankings, and how much this issue may have tainted them along with other issues that have also been discussed at length, we have moved them to purely an advisory capacity to renew faith in the system itself.
I have personally taken further steps myself, to remove the perceived image of favoritism or partiality towards anyone by removing myself entirely as a Player within Particracy itself, and will instead focus purely on Moderation Duties.
Vesica's post above followed a discussion on the official public Discord server where it was pointed out to him that neither he nor Auditorii had given any response to the questions which have been asked since as far back as June about their role in the plagiarism situation. Vesica had offered to respond for himself on the server, although I encouraged him to respond here on the forum, where I felt it would be more helpful and appropriate.
I was somewhat startled by the words he chose to use to me in the Discord discussion, when he told me "these conversations have already occurred at, with the greatest of respect, at paygrades higher than yours", clarifying this to mean that "These conversations have already happened between the Moderation Team and Wouter". The unmistakable impression he left me with was that as far as he is concerned, he is answerable to Wouter and the other Moderators, but that he feels little serious obligation to respond to issues raised on the forum or to be generally transparent to the wider community.
Nevertheless, he has, albeit weeks too late, finally deigned to come to the forum and make a statement about the plagiarism statement. For this, I am grateful, and give him credit.
Unfortunately, the first two sentences of his statement confirm the aloof sentiment he conveyed on Discord, explaining again that he, the other two Moderators and Wouter have discussed the issue, and instructing us that "This topic is, so far as we are concerned, closed" - the implication being that his words are to be the final word on the matter and that further discussion is not welcome.
The attitude he displays towards the issue of the transparency of Moderators brings to mind an earlier experience I had with him, a few years ago, when I appointed him as a Moderator myself. His very first action, upon being appointed, was to announce to me he had created anonymous accounts on the forum and in the game, and that henceforth, he would be playing the game anonymously, with players having no idea of the connection between his role as a Moderator and his role as a player. I was appalled by this, and immediately put a stop to it, of course.
Earlier today I had a conversation with a player who knew nothing about the incident I just described, but who told me he has a suspicion Vesica is currently playing the game with specific different forum and in-game accounts. Having examined this myself, I am less convinced this is so than he is, but nevertheless, I encouraged him to raise the issue if he felt sufficiently concerned. Unfortunately, he did not feel confident to do so, not even to approach another Moderator about it in private. That in itself speaks volumes about the climate that has been created in this community. To be fair, I am not entirely pinning the full responsibility for that on the current set of Moderators, since this is a problem that has been going on for several years, before any of them were appointed to their current terms as Moderator.
Nevertheless, in the circumstances, I do feel I should pose the obvious questions. Have any of the Moderators been running anonymous accounts? Can we have an assurance "Moderator anonymity" will not be brought back? That really would be absolutely the last thing we would need at the moment.
After having spent the amount of time I have investigating plagiarism on our forum, please believe me, nobody is more keen to want to believe the matter is now concluded than I am. Regrettably, this is not the case.
The efforts made by Moderators to suffocate and close down discussion are not only the biggest part of the current problem, but in fact, practically the entire reason why we got in to this mess in the first place.
Let me recap what has happened.
Moderation decided, without consulting or even informing the community, that plagiarism - which had hitherto always been banned - would now be permitted. It sounds incredible, doesn't it? Exactly when this happened and how this happened is not yet clear, but the evidence it happened is objectively irrefutable. We have the objective evidence of previous rule sets which explicitly banned plagiarism, we have the objective evidence of a series of bungled rules rewrites since (which at some point removed the explicit prohibition of plagiarism), and we have the objective evidence of Auditorii's admission on this very thread that up to June this year, Moderation did not consider plagiarism to be something Moderation needed to move against.
Two players, Luis and Maxington, are now revealed to have plagiarised on an enormous scale, going back quite some time, especially in the case of Maxington. I did not personally know they were doing this until more recently. Others, however, did. It is evident from conversations I have had with other players that there were people who knew what was going on, but did not want to rock the boat, because they were worried about facing the all-too-familiar accusations which get bandied about in this community of "creating drama" or "being toxic". Others here will be able to attest to this too, from their own conversations and experiences.
And that reaction - of not wanting to rock the boat - whilst disappointing, is understandable. Luis and Maxington were both very much grandees of the game, part of the in-clique. Both became Moderators. Both were involved with the various incarnations of the RP Team and the GRC. Both not only maintained prominent positions for their nations in the economic and military rankings, but indeed, at times had a direct role in being responsible for actually determining those rankings for the entire game. Both were considered prominent role-players on the forum. And both - and I am confident of this, having researched through so many of their posts - had significant RP interaction over a period of years with two of our current Moderators, Vesica and Auditorii, and also had significant in-game interests which were wrapped up with the interests of those two Moderators.
It does not take a genius to discern that the problem here was not that Moderation failed to sufficiently suppress and stifle discussion about the game, or that Moderation was too transparent and responsive to feedback. The problem, overwhelmingly, was that an environment was created where discussion about the game was made unwelcome, where Moderators felt little need to be accountable, and where certain individuals had become unchallengeable. There is no other way to explain a situation where the game's policy on plagiarism was changed in secret, and where some players knew or strongly suspected prominent members of the community were plagiarising but felt unable to speak up about it.
This community was not always like this. For some years, we had Moderators who were much more grown-up, transparent and relaxed about legitimate discussions about the game. It is a matter of regret that there has been a shift in around the last 3 to 4 years, and it is difficult not to conclude that this contributed to the fiasco we have experienced with the plagiarism situation.
In his statement above, Vesica writes "On my word of honour, I did not know how widespread and serious the issue was until it brought to light through the Plagiarism Reports". It seems plausible he did not realise quite how widespread the plagiarism was, since nor did anyone else I have spoken to, apart from maybe the plagiarists themselves. He does not, though, indicate how much of the plagiarism he was aware of, and notice his statement does not even attempt to deny that he was aware of some degree of plagiarism going on.
Auditorii and Vesica are both intelligent people, with an awareness of current affairs and who I would assume probably read a newspaper or a current affairs magazine at least from time to time. Having been through the experience of combing through post after post of Luis' and Maxington's, going back a significant period of time, and having seen how much their RP has intersected with that of Auditorii and Vesica, I feel a responsibility to put on record that I find it very difficult to believe Auditorii and Vesica did not either know or strongly suspect that the plagiarism of real life news and current affairs articles was going on at the very least in the case of Maxington.
Even by the most generous interpretation, the plagiarism situation has not been handled well by Moderation; indeed, it was handled so badly that for some time Moderation knowingly and willingly allowed it to be performed unchallenged on our forum. After the rule was introduced outlawing plagiarism in Particracy, I was hopeful we had turned a corner, but even then, progress was sluggish. No effort was made to remove the posts identified as plagiarism until around a month later, when I pushed for it. Nor was there any attempt to seriously investigate how widespread the problem was, despite the fact this was so obviously necessary. In the end, I ended up doing the investigating myself. This was a tedious and depressing task which frankly I resented performing, but I did believe it needed to be done, and I cared enough about Particracy as a creative project to be willing to put the effort in to doing it. For undertaking this utterly thankless process, I was repaid with calumny and abuse from a section of the community, both in public and private.
I also had to endure the frustration and humiliation of knowing that whilst I was in the middle of carrying out an arduous task I felt should properly have been done by the Moderators, the two Moderators who had allowed the plagiarism in the first place, Vesica and Auditorii, were larking around in a rival spin-off project to Particracy organised by one of the plagiarists and two other individuals who have been trolling me and vociferously supporting the plagiarists both on the forum and on Discord. The Discord server associated with this project was used to spread lies about me and launch personal attacks about me, and anyone who objected to plagiarism in strong enough terms was booted off of it. Only in recent days, I understand, have Vesica and Auditorii removed themselves from this server and this project. Naturally, I credit them for having done so, although I question their sense of judgement, as Particracy Moderators, in going there in the first place and involving themselves there to the extent they did and for as long as they did.
I will now turn to some of the things which, in my view, need to happen next.
(1) Wouter should provide a public assurance that he is opposed to plagiarism in this community, and that he will convey his position on this to any future Moderator he appoints.
I have come under strong personal criticism and at times unfair pressure, both publicly and privately, for asking for this previously, but it needs to be asked for, and it needs to be asked for loudly. Wouter bears ultimate responsibility for this project. He has already (unknowingly?) appointed two Moderators who turned out to be plagiarists, and also at least another two Moderators who knowingly allowed plagiarism on the forum. No stance by Particracy against plagiarism is credible unless Wouter is committed to it. Moderators, as we know, come and go, but Wouter has been responsible for this game since he launched it in 2005. If Wouter is not serious about tackling plagiarism, and if he is in future going to appoint Moderators without caring whether they are serious about tackling plagiarism, then there is little hope left.
(2) Auditorii and Vesica should step aside from their positions. In Particracy's post-plagiarism era, there can be no place for Moderators who have enabled plagiarism. Sentiment cannot come in to this; it is a question of doing what is right for the integrity, the credibility and the future of this project. It goes without saying that I bear no ill-will to either of them, and I am grateful to them for the many positive things they have contributed to this game, and I hope they will remain as part of our community as valued members.
(3) Auditorii, Vesica and any other Moderators involved with permitting plagiarism within Particracy should give a full account of when and how the decision to permit plagiarism was made, and also the full details of the plagiarism they were aware of.
Much has gone on in the shadows. We, as a community, need to know what happened so that past mistakes can be learned from.
(4) The era of suppressing legitimate discussion about the game needs to come to a definitive end, so that the mistakes of the past can be avoided. Civility must be maintained, but the role of Moderators should be to facilitate discussion, not suppress it.
(5) Steps need to be taken to raise awareness of the fact plagiarism is no longer tolerated. For those of us who follow the forum closely, this may seem unnecessary, and some of you may even be wishing we were talking about plagiarism a little less, but the fact remains, we need to get the message out there to everybody - including to those who frequent the forum less regularly, and to new and future players.
Some specific suggestions to consider:
- The creation of a stickied thread in the Moderation sub-forum, dedicated to plagiarism reports. This would underline the fact plagiarism is being taken seriously. Technically the Inappropriate Real-Life/Ridiculous/Offensive Variables or Moderation Queries and Feedback threads would suffice, but as I say, the creation of a dedicated thread for plagiarism reports would send out a clear and positive message that plagiarism is now an issue being treated with some priority.
- The FAQ, Tutorial and Random Facts should include references to the fact plagiarism is not allowed in Particracy. Consideration should also be given to requesting Wouter to amend the creating a new user page, to include mention of a prohibition against plagiarism.
- The RP sub-forums, particularly the International News one, should feature a stickied post at the top with a title reading something like "***PLAGIARISM IS FORBIDDEN***".
(6) Following on from the recent experiences, it would be helpful for some official Moderation advice to be provided to players who have been found to have committed plagiarism within Particracy. The Moderators, who will have had their own conversations with the plagiarisers, will doubtless have their own thoughts on that, but as examples, I would suggest the following:
- Be careful not to mislead Moderators when you are asked to outline the scope of your plagiarism, as if you are believed to have been dishonest, this may lead to your offence being considered more serious than it already is. Please also consider the possibility that if you have held a casual attitude towards plagiarism and have been RPing for a significant period of time, you may yourself not immediately be aware of the full scale and precise details of the plagiarism you have committed. It is your responsibility to provide Moderation with as accurate information about your plagiarism as you can, and to work conscientiously with Moderation to identify and remove all of the plagiarism you have uploaded on to Particracy.
- If, after your plagiarism has been exposed, you are permitted the privilege of continuing to play the game, please be aware you have a personal responsibility to conduct yourself in a way which allows both Moderators and community members to believe you are now taking the issue of plagiarism seriously. Please bear in mind it is not easy to identify every act of plagiarism, and also that it is not fair to expect someone to plagiarism-check every single post that you write. This means, by definition, that if you are allowed to continue RPing after having been found guilty of plagiarism, you are asking both Moderators and the community to trust you. If, through any reckless behaviour on your part, you abuse the privilege you have been granted by doing anything to undermine this trust, then the responsibility will be entirely and solely yours if your playing rights are revoked.