What is consider plagiarizing here on ATS?

I was reading a the 3 word story thread in BTS, I came to page 3 and saw something I never seen before during my short time here. A member by the user name of dreamrebel was banned by plagiarism.

Well I do understand what the term means, but can anybody here clarify to me what is consider here on ATS or how is determined that you have done such a thing? I mean I follow the news all the time and sometimes I comment on what I have read or see on the news or blogs without making clear reference to the specific article. Is that consider plagiarism?

I just want to make sure that im following the proper guidelines here, because I like this site a lot and dont want to get in any trouble. The internet being a place where the flow of ideas is so huge, how can it be determined or prevent such a thing from happening?

[edit on 9-7-2007 by Bunch]

Taking others work and saying it's your own and not quoting them or linking it...I would think


Yeah?

Originally posted by Bunch

I just want to make sure that im following the proper guidelines here, because I like this site a lot and dont want to get in any trouble.

Bunch, just follow the Terms And Conditions Of Use and you will have no problems.

The member you are bringing up was banned more than 3 years ago. This was long before I was a member here so I have no idea what had happened. Guessing by their signature I'd say it was a matter of them posting content from ATS on other sites claiming it as their own.

Using someones work, without giving them credit for the work.

More specifically, trying to pass it off as your own work.

Let me rephrase my question just to be sure on this one.

If im commenting on a article that I read or saw in the news, and I just refer to it as: "hey I just watch/read this today", im okay? or do I strictly need to provide the source of the article I am referencing.

[edit on 9-7-2007 by Bunch]

Since you did say that you read it, or saw it on tv, etc, I think that you will be ok.

Also, if you read it somehwere but don't recall exactly where, you can always mention that fact that you don't recall the source, and you will be alright in this instance as well.

The biggest reason for members getting hit with a "plagerism" charge, is that they clearly post information as their own.

Hope this clarifies a little better. If not I'm sure one of the staff can give you a better clarification than I tried to do here.

If you took a news story and said you wrote the whole thing word for word, that's plagiarism.

If you say you saw such & such on the news and paraphrase what you saw (put it in your own words) and added your own commentary, it is not plagiarism.

If you quote a couple of paragraphs from a website or print source, you need to put the passage in quotes and link to the site, or say that you typed it up from whatever print source it was.

I ran into a member about a year ago that made several long posts that garnered a lot of replies from members. The sad thing is that the work wasn't his own.

He made no reference to the original author of the work, but I happened to know who had actually written it. This person writes for a living and the member was stealing her work in totality without giving her compensation or credit.

In a case like that it was blatant theft.
I reported it to the Mods and the offender is no longer a member.


ATS can actually get in trouble for allowing plagiarized material to remain on the site.:shk:

The difference is all in the presentation and giving credit where credit is due.

We have different BBcode tags for different situations.

If you're quoting content that came from a fellow member of ATS you can just use the quote button. If it came from a different thread you can use the [ quote] tag and link to the thread it came from.

However, if you're quoting something from any source other than ATS, like a news article, a wikipedia entry etc. you should use the [ ex] tags, which state "external source."

Quoting from other sources is a great way to build an argument, prove a point, demonstrate something, but in a world of information it's only proper to make sure that the person who worked on it gets the credit.

If you follow those simple guidelines that are in our T&C, you'll never run into any problems. By all means, link to or quote other sources, just make sure to clearly state where you got it from.

I don't even think of it as being a "rule" really... more of being a courteous member of the community.

Hope that helps.

Simple guidelines...

Follow the following criteria and you'll be fine.

Mod Note: No Quote/Plagiarism – Please Review This Link.

Mod Note: New External Source Tags – Please Review This Link.

Thanks very much for the informative replies, you guys are the best as always!

I find it easy to consider it like a story.

If I copied a paragraph from a book and said "Isn't this cool what I just wrote?" that would be plagiarism.

If I copied the paragraph and said "Isn't this cool what I just read? Its written by _____ and is from his/her book ____" isn't plagiarism.

What's with the words & accusations that another forums
FORUM ADMINISTRATOR= ^TrInItY^
is retaliating against??

It's said that ATS?, or perhaps the ATS Administrator,
has begun a campaign against the other site...& its getting nastier.

and the axiom comes up: power corrupts...etc, money & Google banner ads are being placed in inappropriate places...

& here i was, thinking i am part of a sea-change in ethics, business, sharing, but only as a 'member' here...

? whats ? some of the moderators doing...under-cover & covert Ops??
to boost the sites clicks, eyes, traffic???

when you post someone else's work, you must give them credit, thus the "ex" tags and the request for a link to the full document.

Originally posted by St Udio
What's with the words & accusations that another forums...

Just that words... perhaps tempered by an anger inspired by misconceptions.

It's said that ATS?, or perhaps the ATS Administrator,
has begun a campaign against the other site...& its getting nastier.

Simply not true. We have now, nor never had any ill-intent toward the folks at GLP. No one here is banned for mentioning or linking to their site.

money & Google banner ads are being placed in inappropriate places...

If you do some searches, you'll see that we've begun several campaigns using Google AdWords. We're getting about 3 million daily impressions, and with that many, I suppose it was only a matter of time before content keyword or site topic matching brought ATS ads to GLP.

here i was, thinking i am part of a sea-change in ethics, business, sharing, but only as a 'member' here...

Nothing has changed. Altruism, Trust, and Sincerity are still very important to us.

Once again I've run into this issue in the last few days.

A member posted that "This is the way I think".....
The member then posted the thoughts of a well known author and yet claimed the thoughts were his own, and gave no credit to the original author.

Not only is this a violation of the T&C, but it causes me to doubt the credibility of the Member in all future posts. I do appreciate this Member's input but all of it has become suspect now that he's ripped off someone else's writing.

Plagiarism is a serious issue.
I won't tolerate it, and neither will the ATS Mods and Admin..

Originally posted by St Udio
& here i was, thinking i am part of a sea-change in ethics, business, sharing, but only as a 'member' here...

SkepticOverlord has covered your comments quite nicely. I just wanted to add that we certainly do strive to a higher level of ethics than most message board communities achieve.

This is why we adhere to Creative Commons, a link of which is attached to every single post by every single member (look out for "copyright" in the bottom right corner of each post).

Should people come across an infringement on ATS, BTS or any other site that we administrate then do tell us and we will rectify the issue as soon as we can.

This works both ways, and due to the sheer popularity and extremely active nature of these websites some things may not be immediately apparent to us (possibly falling into depths of the database). But I can assure you that we do not condone plagiarism here on ATS or other websites.

Originally posted by Bunch

Well I do understand what the term means, but can anybody here clarify to me what is consider here on ATS or how is determined that you have done such a thing?

Bunch, here's a similar query I had and I think it was well brought out by the mods and other members. If you go through it, you'll get a clearer picture as to what this all means and what the minimum acceptable requirements are for posting on ATS.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Cheers!

i appreciate the replies 'simon' & 'bill',

the ad placements made by Google's computerised Ad placement programme makes absolute sense,
rather than the accusation of ATS deliberately intruding into another's domain as an antagonist with ill intentions.



also, i see tons of times where the [EX] tags are edited into the post by the Mods...in keeping with the spirit & letter of copyrights , creative commons, & the 12 blogger laws one should know www.avivadirectory.com...


have a good day,