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by zeedotme 5142 days ago
yes I appreciate many of you agree a quote should have been included rather than an attempted rewrite.

I agree, that would have been better.

However, calling us out for plagiarism does feel far too extreme when the updated piece clearly states the source of the facts. The original piece only included links without a name and that I agree is 100% wrong. I hadn't seen that original piece before we were called out on twitter and my reactions were clearly based on immediate emotions...never a good time to reply.

Again, will put all this into a single post soon.
5 comments
MisterBastahrd 5142 days ago
They are calling you out for plagiarism because your company is a plagiarist. It's just as clear as seeing a person who is burning and telling them that they are on fire, or a person who is dead and calling them deceased. You do not have the right to lift entire articles from other's sites, even if you DO give attribution.

If you as CEO have so little common sense that you don't even know what plagiarism is, then you need to step down quickly before you open your company up to lawsuits against people who actuallY DO have the money and the time to pursue a suit.

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rhizome 5141 days ago
Seems odd that he could become CEO of a publishing company without knowing what plagiarism is.
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scott_s 5141 days ago
Citing sources does not protect you from plagiarism. That is what I mean by the second version is not okay. If the lesson you're learning here is "I just need to make sure we link to the original" then you're learning the wrong lesson.
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peetahb 5142 days ago
It would be sort of funny if you included copy/pasted comments from HN in your PR-cleanup post.
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chris_wot 5141 days ago
Yes, you attributed. But you very deliberately copied the article and posted it as your own work. You can't even say that you forgot to add quote marks as the text was slightly altered - evidently to give you an "out" if anyone accused you of direct copying.

Your threats afterward made things worse - much worse. Not understanding plagiarism (go look up the dictionary, or Wikipedia already!) whilst being an edito of a publication just makes this bad thing horrendous.

Make a full apology. Don't do it again.

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grandpa 5141 days ago
Zee, I think it's pretty ridiculous that you're even getting the slightest bit annoyed about this. Needless to say, we'll be saying well clear of anything your are involved with in future. http://notes.unwieldy.net/post/23049725899/plagiarism
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