Apparently according to some moderators. So if I mention that George Carlin died, for God's sake, I am committing plagiarism, because sure, somebody else must have written it in the news.

Ridiculous at its best... :) This place is getting worse by the day, luckily I don't take it so seriously...

What are you talking about?

People post news stories here all the time. As long as they carry the author's byline and a link to the source, I can't see much problem with it. Having said that, if it's a long article you shouldn't quote the entire thing.

Well, I started a thread about a student who tried to sell his vote on Ebay. I quoted like 3 sentences so people would know what I am talking about. I usually include a link, but there was nothing else in the link relevant, and it was all over the news anyway, so I didn't put a link in.

Now my good friend Tiassa, who is the only moderator who made it to my Ignore list long time ago deleted the thread citing "plagiarism". Had it been a scientic paper or a novel, I can see the point, but having 3 lines from current news is just anal...

And even if it was not linked or quoted, why deleting it instead of asking for quotesources? Is Sciforums so affraid of being sued over the discussion of current events???

P.S.: For stupidity's sake I rewrote it and posted it under a different subforum....

I do not know how much weight this source carries, and was too lazy to check, but here you go:

From: http://medianation.blogspot.com/2007/11/recycling-quotes-isnt-plagiarism.html
But do quotes always need to be credited? Of course not. Let me offer an absolutely typical example from yesterday's James Carroll column on Middle East peace prospects, which appeared in the Boston Globe. Toward the end, Carroll writes:

Which brings us to the final reason for hope. The status quo is now universally recognized as catastrophic for everybody. "Unless a political horizon can be found," Olmert said last week, "the results will be deadly." Deadly to a two-state solution, Palestinian hope, and Israeli democracy. Deadly to the world. By comparison, all obstacles to peace are minor.

No one would think Carroll had interviewed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert said it, it got reported around the world and Carroll used it as background material in expressing his opinion. It was an entirely unremarkable bit of journalistic craft.
From: http://medianation.blogspot.com/2007/11/recycling-quotes-isnt-plagiarism.html


I always thought the rule was you could quote press releases without attribution, but not published material containing original commentary. Where is the line?

Of course, we could all err on the side of caution and cite every reference, no matter how well known...


You know, "follow the golden rule". Oops.... :rolleyes:

Syzygys I have already tried to explain this to you by PM but you dont seem to get the hint so i will make it CRYSTAL clear here:



Forum Rules

7. Cutting and pasting / plagiarism

A. General
Posting large verbatim extracts of text from other sites is undesirable for several reasons:
· It uses up storage space on Sciforums.
· It duplicates information that is easily accessible elsewhere.
· It can disrupt the flow of a thread, because posters have to scroll through large amounts of text that they may not wish to read.
· It may breach copyright laws.
Therefore, we ask that posters abide by the following guidelines:
· All quotes from other sites must be attributed (e.g. by posting a link to the site).
· Quoted text should be restricted to a few lines or a paragraph unless the poster is quoting the text along with his or her, own detailed analysis (interspersed with the text).
· Avoid verbatim reproduction of entire posts of other posters (e.g. from earlier in a thread). If you want to dissect a post, it is fine to split it into different parts, but do not simply quote the entire post and then add a one or two line comment.

Posts which deviate from these guidelines will be edited or deleted.

B. Plagiarism
Plagiarism consists of copying another person's writings and passing them off as your own. If you post something somebody else has written, you must name the author, and preferably also reference the source. Posts which include material from elsewhere that is not properly acknowledged will be deleted.



Did you think i just decided one day to make up this rule? We not only had a VERY lengthy debate on the issue but i had the aproval of plazma to enforce this rule before i even started it (though i do admit that it sliped out earlier than i intended)


Standards for Academic Integrity: Source material: quotes, citations, hyperlinks, etc (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=79032)

Version 2.0

This will go into effect today (the fact that the old thread was able to be viewed was a mistake on my part, it was only a draft copy, not a new policy). Any comments, criticisms, etc. should be either posted in THIS thread or PMed directly to me.

In order to improve communication at Sciforums, the following standards are now in effect. Posts not meeting these standards are subject to moderator review and deletion. Please see (this thread) if you have further questions

This shouldn't affect those members who already have their own systems for quoting outside sources. But for those who currently don't, don't know how to go about it or simply refuse to follow any standard, this will be the new minimum standard.

When is source material required

Source material is required whenever you wish a debate to go further than just a personal opinion. It can be inserted into any thread as long as it is relevant.

When asked for by a mod, however, it will be required. This will only happen if claims are made that are outside the normal. For instance to say "Christians believe in god" would not require a quote because it is self-evident. However to say "homosexuality is the cause of AIDS" would require a higher degree of evidence.

How to properly reference material:

There are many acceptable ways to cite source material. As long as your reference includes these things it should be acceptable.

Firstly you must have a way to separate the quoted material from your own text

Also for a book (or other offline) references these must be included:


The title of the work
The author
Date of publication
Where it was published
The page number (if applicable)


If it's an online source then the link MUST be included.
Other things which are preferable include:


The title
The author
The publisher
Date of publication
The date and time viewed

Hey, thanks for the input. I assume news is a special business, in this regard, because it is competitive, very short lived and the first is the king! So if a well established news source let's say Reuters reports a breaking news, several other news agencies take it over, but since they are competitors, not necesserily attribute it to Reuters. They just reword it and report it as THEIR breaking news.

Asguard thanks for the try, but unless you make a point in 3 or less lines, it won't get through me... I am kind of bored this topic and it hasn't even started...

P.S.: In my personal opinion, George Carlin has died, but one can never be 100% sure...

Asguard thanks for the try, but unless you make a point in 3 or less lines, it won't get through me...
When you quote an online source, put it in a quote box and provide a link.

You could also put the quoted section in italics or indent or whatever. But it must be somehow separated from the rest of your text and there must be a link.

That's it.

Mod Hat — Response and redirect


So if I mention that George Carlin died, for God's sake, I am committing plagiarism, because sure, somebody else must have written it in the news.

Just a little melodramatic, don't you think?

Repeating facts known in the public sphere is not plagiarism. Directly quoting a published article without crediting the author, however, is a different matter entirely. I would have figured you were smart enough to figure that out for yourself.

Given that we have a very loose plagiarism standard—

If you post something somebody else has written, you must name the author, and preferably also reference the source. Posts which include material from elsewhere that is not properly acknowledged will be deleted.

("Forum Rules, Regulations and Recommendations—Version 2.3 (http://www.sciforums.com/announcement.php?f=36)", Sec. 7B)

—that isn't even fully enforced (typically all of a link suffices; see Randwolf's post at #4 (http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1923721&postcount=4) for an example), I don't see how it's too much to ask.

• • •


I always thought the rule was you could quote press releases without attribution, but not published material containing original commentary. Where is the line?

For the record, the article in question was, in fact, an opinion piece authored by a senior fellow at a political research and advocacy organization for a midwest newspaper.

• • •

A reminder to all members:

There are established rules for appealing your dissatisfaction with a given decision by a moderator. Both Plazma Inferno! (http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1761971) and Stryder (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=79023) have posted explanations of the protocol for complaint. Please review those posts. Complaint topics posted in various fora (e.g., EM&J) are not part of the appropriate protocol.

• • •

Redirect:

This thread is redirected to SFOG for further discussion of plagiarism and citation standards at Sciforums.

When you quote an online source, put it in a quote box and provide a link.

I agree. How in the hell is this difficulr?

When you quote an online source, put it in a quote box and provide a link.

I usually do. You tell me, if occasionally I fail, is it reason for deletion? Also it is reasonable to expect people to be informed about current events...

But I have a question: If I use similar wording what the news agencies use and the moderator think it is a copy of a news although it is not, should he automaticly delete a post/thread just because it is a similar language?

because if it is so, I will put random fucks in my sentences just to be obvious...

Syzygys. You posted about a specific case, not a hypothetical. It is fair under our policy to expect that to be sourced. Your also assuming that because your a yank everyone is. Most of us spend more time reading the news from our OWN area than what effects YOU.

Its symple, POST A LINK AND USE THE QUOTE MARKS!!!!!

No excuse not to follow this procidure

But I have a question: If I use similar wording what the news agencies use and the moderator think it is a copy of a news although it is not, should he automaticly delete a post/thread just because it is a similar language?

It's actually fairly simple, Syz. There are some members for whom copied text would stick out because it defies their usual patterns. And for the rest, the copied text is often marked by quotation marks or tags. Or people leave the footnote numbers without posting the footnotes.

When we see what looks like quoted text without a source citation, it's usually easy enough to check.

And the present rule is that any post committing plagiarism will be deleted.

We might make exceptions under certain circumstances, and try other routes settling the point. For instance, if a post reflected some sort of genuine effort, and its author appeared to accidentally omit one of several sources, we would find another way to resolve that issue. But with zero-effort posts, no.

And given that we don't even enforce the plagiarism standard we have to its fullest, I don't see why anyone should be complaining about it. There are a lot of posts that would be struck if we actually started enforcing the standard as it's written.

This reminds me about something I'm inept at, that I'd like to employ here: Would you give us a quick tutorial on how you post footnotes in vBulletin/bbcode, Tiassa?

He just uses a SIZE=1 tag.

Now I recall I posted quoted texts without links (so did others) in another subforums and they never got deleted, but of course the rest of the moderators are not so anal...

Anyway....

This reminds me about something I'm inept at, that I'd like to employ here: Would you give us a quick tutorial on how you post footnotes in vBulletin/bbcode, Tiassa?

It's the simplest method I could figure. As a Mac user, Option-Shift-8 gives me a degree character (so does Option-0, but of a slightly different size), which I use as a footnote mark.

I don't recall how easy or difficult extended characters are for Windows users. I couldn't comment at all on Linux.

And then, at the bottom of the post, I simply underscore about twenty spaces, switch fonts to Times New Roman, and write whatever notes I deem necessary.

hypewaders if you want a sympler method than tiassa's the method i use is posted in the B&E thread on how to reference, including all the codes i use. you just have to change { to [ and replace the text with your infomation

Thanks, to all of you. I'm considering going to footnotes, on the assumption that they are ignored less than hypertext- But I'm in doubt about that assumption. How about some code to selectively, subliminally cause the most superficial people to become more inquisitive critical thinkers? I'd make more painstaking references in my posts, if only the references would somehow register with the folks who tend to ignore them.

I'm considering going to footnotes, on the assumption that they are ignored less than hypertext

My thing with footnotes is that links break. So if I've given other information, the article should be fairly easily located as long as it still exists.

How about some code to selectively, subliminally cause the most superficial people to become more inquisitive critical thinkers? I'd make more painstaking references in my posts, if only the references would somehow register with the folks who tend to ignore them.

In truth, you get used to it after a while. Another benefit is that I can easily find old references that have gone ignored, like a transcript of This American Life (#310) (http://thisamericanlife.org/extras/radio/310_transcript.pdf) that I've posted repeatedly of late. (Some of the issues discussed in the 2006 broadcast about habeas corpus have come to in recent days.)

And, if I ever decide to blog one of those points, I just Google "sciforums tiassa (reference)", where "(reference)" equals some piece of information from that citation, such as a journalist's name. Sometimes that's easier than remembering what newspaper the guy works for.

The benefits of footnoting go well beyond futile attempts to communicate with our most superficial neighbors. At least, that's how I see it.

quote it...link it...your safe

...sez the departed. /bump