[PLUG-TALK] Internet's Long Memory

[glen e. p. ropella]

Thus spake Russell Senior circa 07/02/09 01:46 PM:
> I guess it's on the matter of degree we might disagree.  It just
> doesn't register very high on my outrage-meter.  I'd also argue that
> intent matters.  For it to be egregious, there must be an intent to
> mislead.

OK.  I suppose I'll allow that, since our US court system allows such
arguments. [grin]  And, in that context, if we consider Michael Robinson
incompetent and his changing "Rich Shepard" to "Michael Robinson"
without changing the quote character (">") at the beginning of the line
_and_ his changing the content of the ASCII art without changing the
quote characters at the beginnings of the lines, is just evidence of his
incompetence, THEN his plagiarism was not egregious.

Nonetheless, it was plagiarism, even if only a degenerate case.

>  A) "I think $foo" (intentionally omitting that someone else expressed
>      the thought previously); and
> 
>  B) "That person said $baz" (when they really said $bar)
> 
> In full generality, I think (A) happens practically every time we take
> a breath, if you subtract "intentionally", which makes me nervous when
> we say it is bad.

I suppose I disagree with empathy for your position.  To the speaker
(whose responsibility it is to be as clear as possible... otherwise they
should shut up and drink), there are gradations of obviousness as to
whether $foo is an original opinion.  If I say: "I think the world is
round", then it should be very obvious that I don't intend the statement
as an original thought.  But if I say: "I think quantum mechanics is a
useful fiction", then it's not so obvious whether I'm repeating someone
else's opinion or expressing an original one.

When one is attempting to communicate something (even if or perhaps
especially when the carrier wave is a _joke_), it is incumbent upon the
speaker to be as clear as possible which opinions she thinks are her
original thoughts versus those she heard elsewhere and is repeating.

Just to be clear, I don't think it's reasonable to require someone to
remember the source, only to qualify their thought with "$qual, and I
agree, that $foo", where $qual can be anything like "I heard somewhere",
"I read in the paper", "Joe Schmoe said", etc.

> Consider the perpetual injustice that transpires when some loudmouth
> famous person gets the credit (because books say he said it) instead
> of the introvert that whispered in his ear and was the true genius,
> but never got any credit at all.  Maybe just repeating what you've
> found holds up to reality, and skipping credit-giving is a better way
> to go.  If someone cares who gets credit, maybe they should look it up
> themselves?

But "looking it up" assumes that our history books (or at least some
history book somewhere) has the accurate story.  And that's just not the
case.  How much of, say, Einstein's work was inspired by those around
him?  And how much credit do we usually give to that constellation of
people versus how much credit is accurately described in our history books?

We just don't know the answer to such questions.  And your answer will
differ depending on whose version you "look it up" in.  So "maybe they
should look it up themselves" is not an adequate solution.  A better
solution is for the speaker to make reasonable attempts to include her
sources as she repeats.  After all, who better to know her sources than
the speaker herself?

> I think (B) is fully dishonest in the cases that $bar and $baz differ
> substantially in meaning, and isn't just a paraphrase.

Michael Robinson's two versions the ill-cited ASCII art clearly fall
into category (B).

> I gather that your emphatic and thorough trouncing is being
> accomplished now? ;-)

[grin] ... Well, sort of.  Actually, I'm just wasting time as my
simulations run.  Michael Robinson and his antics aren't worth spit,
really.  But I do support banning him from plug-talk because of his
plagiarism.  Now, we have two examples where some Google search will
show Michael Robinson as the archiver (and mis-inferred as the author) of:

http://lists.pdxlinux.org/pipermail/plug-talk/2009-February/005201.html
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/pipermail/plug-talk/2009-February/005202.html

For posterity, the source Michael Robinson plagiarized was:

http://lists.pdxlinux.org/pipermail/plug-talk/2009-February/005196.html

-- 
glen e. p. ropella, http://ropella.net/~gepr