The "Content copied from other sites" Strikes Back!

gammaBen · Post by **gammaBen** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 10:34 pm

Hello, GameBanshee. This is my first post, motivated by an editorial I read on the site this evening.

First of all, let me say that it's too bad the thread Content copied from other sites! was already closed before I read it!

I just found out about the article "The History of Fallout" this evening by means of the Wasteland Yahoo! Group, Snake Squeezins, and went here excitedly to read the full article. While I did appreciate page 2's quote of The Wasteland Ranger HQ-Grid's coverage of Fountain of Dreams, a sub page of my website devoted to Wasteland, it is in fact a very slightly reworded _misquote_ of my original words. Also, I was disappointed no link back to the HQ-Grid was given for a full reference, and was very surprised to see that in several other paragraphs, text was lifted from my site word for word:

Pages two and three quote the old Interplay FAQ, that I've seen no where else except the original Interplay website, and mine. Not saying I have exclusive or any rights to distributing the old FAQ, but the fact that this article also uses it is a clue to where they got it. I've had it on my site for years. A few other entries in this editorial's timeline are also public domain knowledge, but where else on the net are listed in a timeline or history, only the Ghostwheel and Desolation! games, in the same page, other than the HQ-Grid?

Page three notes "In fact, the inside flap of the box begins with “Remember Wasteland!”", a direct quote from my site's coverage of Fallout.

The previous thread now closed has posts describing how the editorial was reviewed based on the similarities to Theodor Lauppert's homepage, and then edited to make it 100% original. Sorry, but I have to disagree with this estimate, since there are still many similarities, copy/pastes, and other literary no-nos on the editorial--if just compared with my site.

Look, I'm all about getting people excited about post nuclear war games. Wasteland has been a hobby of mine for 14 years; I've had my Wasteland web page on the Internet for nine years. Through the site I've tried to promote the awesome series of games that is Wasteland/Fallout. I just think that if someone uses a website for research material, they should reference it. And if they cut and paste, they should quote it.

Whatever positive press Wasteland and Fallout get out of any website dedicated to it, I'm all in favor of. Just don't forget your bylines and your double quote key on the keyboard. I could try to track down the e-mail address of James Mabrey, but since on the editorial it says to leave comments at the forums, and with the attention the last thread on this topic received from the webmasters, I thought I'd get much better response doing just that, and posting here.

All that said, I did enjoy the article. There were a lot of things in it that I didn't know, mostly around the Fallout series and shake-ups that went down with Interplay, Black Aisle, etc. I think the editorial does an excellent job of the History of Fallout. I hope that it could be improved even more, based on some of the comments I've made here. Finally, I look forward to browsing the other editorials of this site. Looks like this place has a lot of good reading material for a gaming fan like me to enjoy.

Thanks,
"Ranger" Ben

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 11:09 pm

We seem to be garnering quite a bit of issues from this one article. The joys of the age of the Internet.

Well, thanks for bring this further information to our attention. I'm personally starting to think it'll be best to simply scrap the article, all things considered, but that'll be up to Buck, I suppose.

Post by **BuckGB** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 11:21 pm

Once again I find myself totally surprised that James submitted this article to us knowing full well that it wasn't entirely his own. At this point, I don't want to make any further assumptions about which areas of it are original, so I'm just going to pull it down. Suffice to say, I will not be posting anymore article contributions on GameBanshee unless it's from a trusted and verified source.

Thanks for the response, Ben, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

gammaBen · Post by **gammaBen** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 12:09 am

In all sincerity, I wasn't hoping the article would be pulled.

The Internet is a living document. Web pages change all the time. I'm constantly updating my various websites. I was hoping this one could be revised, too.

I'm sorry to see the article get derezzed as it was pretty comprehensive, and I think it added a lot to the family of webpages about Wasteland/Fallout games. On the other hand I do realize that you want to maintain a certain standard and if it doesn't make the cut, I affirm your quality control.

I know it's extra work for the editors and/or the original author, but I think it would be a good article to resurrect at a later point, if some time could be spent on it to more properly quote sources. The images, particularly, were nice to have side-by-side (or top-by-bottom?)--and I don't think I've seen a website cover the various games like that before.

Hope my first impression for some wasn't a bad one. Thanks for the understanding and patience with a web geek who obsesses a little too much with his Wasteland addiction!

Ben

Vicsun · Post by **Vicsun** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 12:14 pm

[QUOTE=gammaBen]In all sincerity, I wasn't hoping the article would be pulled.

The Internet is a living document. Web pages change all the time. I'm constantly updating my various websites. I was hoping this one could be revised, too.

I'm sorry to see the article get derezzed as it was pretty comprehensive, and I think it added a lot to the family of webpages about Wasteland/Fallout games. On the other hand I do realize that you want to maintain a certain standard and if it doesn't make the cut, I affirm your quality control.

I know it's extra work for the editors and/or the original author, but I think it would be a good article to resurrect at a later point, if some time could be spent on it to more properly quote sources. The images, particularly, were nice to have side-by-side (or top-by-bottom?)--and I don't think I've seen a website cover the various games like that before.

Hope my first impression for some wasn't a bad one. Thanks for the understanding and patience with a web geek who obsesses a little too much with his Wasteland addiction!

Ben[/QUOTE]

In an attempt to compromise: would you be content with your article being cited as a source and the sections copied from it being marked as citations? Now, I know this is ultimately up to Buck, and he is probably sick of the whole debacle by now, but, like you, I'd be sorry to see a good article gone from the site.

gammaBen · Post by **gammaBen** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 3:11 pm

[QUOTE=Vicsun]In an attempt to compromise: would you be content with your article being cited as a source and the sections copied from it being marked as citations?[/QUOTE]

That'd be fine. The specific things that should be quoted are in my original post. Or, the wording can just be changed to convey the same content, but with a unique style so it's not copy/paste.

Of course, this doesn't address the possibility that other content in the article, not closely related to my Wasteland site, might have also been lifted instead of quoted or reworded.