Blessings Darlings!
Plagiarism (from Wikipedia): defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work.
I've been running into an astonishing amount of plagiarism on Pagan sites and pages online lately. It's hard to find an original thought. Instead, you get a picture of an athame with text that comes from Wikipedia. You look, and the person posted it after taking it (with permission) from another site which may or may not be the one that original plagiarized the text. Okay, in this case, the text was originally plagiarized by Ravensgrove Coven on Facebook.
But that one group isn't the only one doing it. Lots of groups on Facebook, lots of blogs, lots of websites, have scraped all their content from others, usually without attribution. And in the cases where the stuff is copyrighted, without getting permission from the writer/artist.
Honor? The 3-fold law? The Wiccan Rede? Karma? Common
decency? "The Christians stole all our stuff"? Some Pagans have no
ethics, no morals, no honor, and lie about their belief in the Gods, the
Rede, the 3-fold law, etc.
Like what someone else has written, and want to share it? Great! Write a summary mentioning who wrote it and provide a link to the original source. That way you share it AND the creator gets the traffic/attention. I've done that with many folks blogs posts that I like. You will NOT read their entire blog post on MY blog. I will link you to THEIR blogs.
Want to incorporate someone else's words that inspired your work, and don't have their permission? Look at what I posted on Thursday, Sept 6, 2012 (with luck, I'll remember to put the link in!). Instead of quoting the words, which I didn't have permission for and ... uh ... was pretty sure that the writer wouldn't want to give me permission for, I did a bullet point summary. The source being from a closed group I could not link back to it in general, and since I also wanted to protect the privacy of the 'bad example', I also did not want to post her name/identifying into, like an avatar.
Today was one of those days when I called out plagiarism when I saw it. And I discovered that some of the people ... well, I'll leave out what the Lala called them ... before she was bounced from one group ... don't seem to understand the difference between plagiarism and copyright violations.
Let me explain the difference between plagiarism and copyright violations: plagiarism, as noted above, is ANYTIME you pass off the words of another as your own (not giving credit) even if the words are public domain (that is, wikipedia); copyright violations muck up an author's 'exclusive right' to their words.
Honestly, plagiarism is explained to US kids thoroughly in high school, when they are taught to do research papers. It's not rocket science, it's not a PhD level concept, it's not a 3rd degree mystery.
Frondly, Fern
Showing posts with label ethics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethics. Show all posts
Friday, September 7, 2012
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Journalistic Integrity
Blessings, Darlings!
Do you work in a large business, with lots of branches around the country (maybe around the world)? Or, in ANY work situation do you ask the same probing questions of co-workers that you would of others? Would you say to a co-worker that what they are saying doesn't make sense to you, and push them HARD for better answers on a non-work related issue they promote?
Like, oh, for instance ..... if your co-worker was to organize some political thang. And you were assigned to cover that political thing. Would you push your co-worker for clear answers as hard as you would a stranger, knowing that you'll still be passing each other in the halls, hanging out with the same folks at work? Would it be as easy for you to ask them the tough questions, and try to insist on answers? If you had more questions, and your work in the same building, would you seek them out and push for more answers? Would that person then feel that they were in a hostile work environment?
I'd hope, that as a news person, you'd be able to do that. But I understand why your employer would feel that you might have a hard time doing that, and that it might at least subconsciously affect your reporting.
Which, obviously, brings me to National Public Radio's (NPR) rules against any of it's employees participating in that NPR covers. The issue also is whether someone on NPR's payroll should be allowed to say something in one venue that NPR would not allow on its air. NPR’s ethics code says they cannot.
I'm betting that NPR would not allow it's employees to advocate, on the air, that congressional office buildings should be occupied. Which is what StopTheMachine2011, the group that Lisa Simeone is on the board of directors of, did the other day. I dunno just what they did today at the bank. And I blame the editor from the National Standard for the incident at the National Air & Space Museum.
I don't think that their policy is a great one. I understand why they have it, but I think that there area better ways to promote journalistic integrity, like just saying they can't participate in things that they themselves cover. But the policy is clear, and has been VERY public since NPR fired Juan Williams a few years back.
I AM amused at the folks crying censorship over this who were fine with Juan Williams being fired. Just because I'm amused by folks who rationalize things like that.
Frondly, Fern
Do you work in a large business, with lots of branches around the country (maybe around the world)? Or, in ANY work situation do you ask the same probing questions of co-workers that you would of others? Would you say to a co-worker that what they are saying doesn't make sense to you, and push them HARD for better answers on a non-work related issue they promote?
Like, oh, for instance ..... if your co-worker was to organize some political thang. And you were assigned to cover that political thing. Would you push your co-worker for clear answers as hard as you would a stranger, knowing that you'll still be passing each other in the halls, hanging out with the same folks at work? Would it be as easy for you to ask them the tough questions, and try to insist on answers? If you had more questions, and your work in the same building, would you seek them out and push for more answers? Would that person then feel that they were in a hostile work environment?
I'd hope, that as a news person, you'd be able to do that. But I understand why your employer would feel that you might have a hard time doing that, and that it might at least subconsciously affect your reporting.
Which, obviously, brings me to National Public Radio's (NPR) rules against any of it's employees participating in that NPR covers. The issue also is whether someone on NPR's payroll should be allowed to say something in one venue that NPR would not allow on its air. NPR’s ethics code says they cannot.
I'm betting that NPR would not allow it's employees to advocate, on the air, that congressional office buildings should be occupied. Which is what StopTheMachine2011, the group that Lisa Simeone is on the board of directors of, did the other day. I dunno just what they did today at the bank. And I blame the editor from the National Standard for the incident at the National Air & Space Museum.
I don't think that their policy is a great one. I understand why they have it, but I think that there area better ways to promote journalistic integrity, like just saying they can't participate in things that they themselves cover. But the policy is clear, and has been VERY public since NPR fired Juan Williams a few years back.
I AM amused at the folks crying censorship over this who were fine with Juan Williams being fired. Just because I'm amused by folks who rationalize things like that.
Frondly, Fern
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