Plagiarism on ATS

I'm seeing a LOT of "reprints" here without proper attribution. Even in "Breaking News." Members simply copy text from the source article and reprint it without quotes or ex tags - and without their own commentary. Then they post the link at the end of it all, as if that "fixes" it.

I've also learned there's no point sending an 'alert' - chances are good it will just be ignored.

Is this the new ATS? The all-new "ATS News Network"? Did I miss the memo? No need to research and write anymore? ...Cribbing, copying, pasting and plagiarism obviously is allowed.






[/rant]

reply to post by soficrow


Just point it out in the thread..

With some it's just that they don't know the quote features..

Others it's flat out Plagiarism..

reply to post by backinblack


what I try to do for the most part is quote a story then link the source

reply to post by soficrow


Sofi, I have to agree to some point, with the above.... sometimes the ATS Thread starting procedure can be less than intuitive (and not just ATS, a lot of forum share the same troubles, although we're supposed to rise above the rest). I have noticed it too, it seems to come and go in waves.

Personally, were it me, I would have at the very least, made mouse hover tooltexttips for each of the "buttons" that are above posts that would at least guide someone who is thinking of using them. Perhaps if that existed, it would give more pause and cause posters to think twice about what it is they've already included.

Sort of like a "EX-TEXT - use this Button for when you are (rest of description here", everytime you hover the mouse cursor over it.


OR maybe have a series of Wizards when posting, which guide you through the type of thread you are intending on creating or the post you are attempting to make. which will format all text type properly.

Sounds like a feature enhancement is needed to fire off the URL prompt after the quote workflow is finished.

I see this issue more as a result of the modern microblog generation (twitter, facebook, etc)

I would say that it isn't any more prevelant than ever. It may seem that way due to the larger number of posts being made on average per day. The percenatge would still be about the same.

Originally posted by soficrow
I'm seeing a LOT of "reprints" here without proper attribution. Even in "Breaking News." Members simply copy text from the source article and reprint it without quotes or ex tags - and without their own commentary. Then they post the link at the end of it all, as if that "fixes" it.

Attribution methods vary around the internet and this method is acceptable at better than half of the places that I am aware of. Quotation marks around the material or a line or some other means of seperation from the rest of the work is pretty common as well. We do it different here with the use of the ex tags.

I've also learned there's no point sending an 'alert' - chances are good it will just be ignored.

I think that's rather harsh. I am looking at the forum for complaints right now and well over 3/4 of them have been addressed and finished. The other 25% is either not handled yet or being discussed. That's about right for a weekend and a holiday for many no less.

Is this the new ATS? The all-new "ATS News Network"? Did I miss the memo? No need to research and write anymore? ...Cribbing, copying, pasting and plagiarism obviously is allowed.

Sofi, you know that plagiarism is not allowed here. You've been here long enough to know what the rules are. None of what you just listed is acceptable. When were these alerts sent and ignored. I went back 15 pages in the complaint forum and seen only one from you, which was dealt with by staff.

There have been two posts that I can remember where I didn't use quote tags for external content.

In the post though, before the external content, I plainly stated that the below is external content without the external content quote tags because I would not be able to lay the information out as nicely with them.

After the external content, I state, End of external content link to material above.

This was done so i could lay out a graph-like presentation because the data required such a layout. With the tags, it would have been bunched together or I would have had thirty or forty external quotes.

Originally posted by soficrow

I've also learned there's no point sending an 'alert' - chances are good it will just be ignored.

Is this the new ATS? The all-new "ATS News Network"? Did I miss the memo? No need to research and write anymore? ...Cribbing, copying, pasting and plagiarism obviously is allowed.

Alert remains the best way to get the attention of all the staff....if you don't alert, there is even less of a chance that it will be fixed.
This place is pretty fast-paced these days.

Plagiarism/copyright issues remain very important, and are one of my pet peeves. Members need to be educated as to the critical nature of proper accreditation of quotes:
IMPORTANT: Using Content From Other Websites on ATS

MOD NOTE: Posting work written by others

DMCA: Digital Millennium Copyright Act

I ran across a case of a new member who started six threads back to back in breaking alternative news a few nights ago with all of the member comments section reserved for the original poster just copy and paste paragraphs from the articles the stories were being based on.

Amazingly the new member had a 0 post count and hadn't even made the 20 required posts to start a thread.

I hit the alert key and reported 2 of them and while it took a while for the staff to respond they did and took the appropriate corrective actions.

I don't alert the staff very often, but when I do it does sometimes take as long as 48 hours until they actually institute some kind of vissible remedy.

So if you really see something totally out of line, the reporting process does seem to work.

Remember the wheels of justice grind slowly, but exceedingly fine.

We do have a fine staff here on ATS my compliments to all of them who work so hard to make the site the best it can be.

reply to post by GAOTU789


Sorry - you guys are great - I know you work hard and this IS a holiday too. ...I just have a bee up my bum about posts that are pure copy and paste, with NO tags - and got right PO'd when I saw this one in Breaking News this am. ...The ENTIRE 2nd post commentary is pulled from the article, verbatim, with NO original thinking / writing. ...rai76 has been a member since 2004: "Registered: 6/6/04" ...semperfortis changed the headline, but left the 2nd post "as is." The bottom tag does say to visit the link for the full article, but as you can see, there's no way to tell that rai76 did NOT write ANY of the posted text:

Originally posted by rai76

post corrected by staff

www.irishcentral.com
(visit the link for the full news article)