Plagiarist Runs Amuck on Mylot

i don't like plagiat. with writing like this my english vocabulary getting better :)

Yes, I've noticed that this is becoming a problem. It's like a person sits at the computer all day and cuts and pastes everything they find. They usually precede it with something like, "Here's something I thought would be interesting for my friends at Myot", then they paste in at least 20, (but often much more), lines of text. Finally they finish with--"What do you think?". So basically, they actually composed only 20 or so words. Even that wouldn't be so bad if a person did it occasionally. I can understand this on the rare occasion when one discovers something really outstanding and wants to alert others. To do this time after time though, is annoying and dishonest in my opinion, even if they give credit to the source. Another version of the same garbage, is also way too common on Mylot. Some people are regularly posting about movies this way. They quote the lengthy movie description, word-for-word, from the back of the box, (I know because I love films and I have a huge library, so I checked the packaging). There are no quotation marks in these posts to indicate that the words are those of a professional writer, nor is credit given to their source of information. They usually then ask a brief question like, "Did you like this film?". I refuse to respond to these types of discussions, but it annoys me that I have to sort through them too. smiles, ink

Unfortunately there is a lot of plagiarism in discussion forums. People just run out of ideas. If you have read several discussions written by certain individuals you can easily spot when a new discussion by them is written in a different style. I don't think people realize that. It makes me sad if credit is not given where credit is due. I don't mind discussions pertaining to news items and articles as long as the proper reference is given. Whatever happened to intellectual honesty?

Well that is not a good practice. I hope they will get caught and definitely suffer the consequences. I guess the best we can do is to report to the original owner or mylot admin, and not to respond to it.

Hello there ltmoon, I noticed that as well, though I'm just a new user. There was this particular discussion that I noticed to be exactly similar which I had already answered about a couple of days before, and to make it worst, the discussion that had been copied was actually in the today's top discussions list. I was not aware of that plagiarism until a couple of days later where I stumbled upon the original discussion and started to remember the copycat version. If I had known back then, I would have reported to mylot about about the plagiarism. I totally agree with you that mylot should be worried about the copy and paste ability of members using that "to their advantage" in the most unprofessional manner. I think those who plagiarized just have nothing better to do, and I wouldn't feel that honorable enough just to get a few earnings from mylot. Good discussion there bro ;)

i think this might be exactly the thing i had started a discussion about before. i would love to be able to copy and paste a whole article to start a discussion and not have to have a thought of my own other than "what do you think?"....hmm. must be nice...

I hope I'm not guilty of what you're describing. I will link to a news article that I'm talking about. I don't however, pass other peoples comments off as my own. I see that some people will copy and paste things from Yahoo answers. I guess the motivation for some people to make some money supersedes integrity.

It would only be a short time before the admin finds them out, or better yet, those who saw it should report that said user immediately. I believe that the most that person would get is, a cancellation of their account here.. Yeah, everybody's been aiming for that 500 post because of the copy/paste availability feature. Others do use them responsibly, am not sure of the rest! Well it's a shame that their stupidity and ignorance is not acceptable here or could be an excuse for them, they could be too desperate to earn money online..

it is a problem for long. it seems similar person appears always on mylot. they copy paste all the discussions. its irritating more when he paste other user's discussion.

I rarely copy and paste articles..When I do it is something I really really want to discuss about that I need answers to. Discussions should be consisted more on items that interest the discusser. I do hope people will not take for granted the copy and paste option.

Awww dayum I hope I didn't answer any of their discussions because then I know I am going to lose money of this. Am I allowed to ask who this mylot user is?

I find this sort of stuff really annoying. If people cannot come up with original thought then they should stay quiet and just post replies to other peoples discussions. I am afraid that you will find religious tracts, technology reviews and news items all set out with no request to discuss. They are best avoided in my view. But it just makes the playground all the harder to play in for the rest of us..

That stinks! I have not seen that yet! But, that really does stink! I hope that you reported them to Crash or someone! I would hate to think that a cortjo73 original was later copied and pasted and used as someone else's work. On the other hand, I guess that it might be a little flattering to think that someone thought so highly of me that they used my work and called it their own! LOL! But, that needs to stop! Thank you for pointing that out! I will keep an eye out for it! And, I really hope that you did call attention to it to someone in myLot's administration so they can correct the problem. I just hope it doesn't effect the rest of us. I like the copy and paste feature. I usually use it to copy my own stuff when my computer freezes so that I can paste my response back into the box when I can get my computer back to work. On other occasions, I have used it to paste a link to help others find info I found. But, I would never plagiarize someone else's work! That is just wrong!

I think it is one thing to refer to an article and base a discussion on what you may think of the article and let the reader read it but to just use someone elses work as your own is a whole other ball game and that is not playing fair. that is where one is a respected mylotter who has been here for a long time and the other a person in too big a hurry.