Systematic Plagiarism in Talk_Politics, Crossposted there
.
EDIT: For a copy of the initial moderator response to this issue and the exchange that elicited it, see here.
EDIT: One of the other culprits is luvdovz. Examine:
She writes (cached version),
So what changes will happen when China eventually becomes the country with the fastest growing, and potentially the largest economy in the world? We might probably be able to witness this moment first-hand very soon. Last month the IMF published a report suggesting that China will overtake the US... The debate about China has needlessly created two polarized groups. One camp is convinced that China is the future lone super-power. Others argue that China is an inherently internally unstable country and faces a looming economic and political crisis. In reality, both sides are true. The only thing that we can be sure of is that China will be a strange super-power.
Rachman/Matyjek write (itself a paraphrase of Rachman's Financial Times editorial here),
What changes will take place when China is the country with the largest economy in the world? We will experience that firsthand very soon. A couple of weeks ago, the International Monetary Fund published a report suggesting that China will overtake the United States... The debate about China has needlessly created two polarized groups. One camp is convinced that China is the future lone superpower. Others contend that China is an internally unstable country and faces a looming economic and political crisis. In reality, both sides are true. China will be a strange superpower.
Dear talk_politics,
Many of you probably do not know that a substantial proportion of the posts in this community, and indeed all of them posted by some of the regulars, regulars including moderators, are completely plagiarized. Except for minor changes presumably meant to make websearching for them difficult, they are simple cut and paste jobs from periodicals and professionals' blogs, used uncredited and unlinked, and passed off as the work of the poster.
I discussed this with moderation, and their response has been to instruct me not to mention it here again, to censor the discussion where I did mention it, and to begin deleting from the community archive some of the offending posts which I had not yet mentioned. (Those who enjoy trying to look at screened comments can go here for the initial exchange.)
The moderator response to this issue being simply censorship of the complaint, and this response being unsatisfactory, I now present the matter to you, the general readership of the community.
Some evidence and some culprits... First, mahnmut.
In his most recent post he wrote,
In a late vote in parliament last night, the Greek PM Georgios Papandreou narrowly won the support of the Parliament for his efforts to pull the country away from the path of bankruptcy. Whether this has given him a second political life is still to be seen. But meanwhile Greece’s financial woes are far from over...
Back to Greece. Unfortunately, the reaction of the European banks to the call for support of the efforts of saving Greece from bankruptcy so far are showing very little sign of such awareness and sense of this broader context of corporate responsibility. The Greek bailout situation is probably an eloquent example of a country at the brink of enormous political unrest, where direct involvement of the private sector might really prevent it from sliding into total anarchy and political extremism. It's obviously not the state that the Greeks should be looking for in this case - it has failed them badly over all those years, but they liked their fairy tale for as long as it lasted. And now they're angry. As for the private sector, I'm afraid the European banks don't seem to have thought about their broader role in society at all. It looks like the same old story - they're trying to lay down low until the turmoil passes, then resurface and continue doing business as usual, for the sole purpose of making profit (sure, for the benefit of their shareholders), and little else beyond that. Maybe because that's the easier way, and the alternative, the business case for corporate social responsibility is just too hard to make...
(This is a post and a culprit I did not previous mention to moderators, and you will see they immediately deleted it, presumably to keep it from notice, but a copy at his personal journal can be found here)
Here is the original piece, published by Crane and Matten:
Yesterday, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou narrowly won the support of the Greek parliament for his ongoing efforts to steer the country away from bankruptcy. Whether this has given him a second political life though is an open question. Greece’s financial troubles are far from over...
The reaction of European banks to support the effort of saving Greece from bankruptcy so far however shows little sign of awareness of this broader context for corporate responsibility. The Greek bailout situation is probably a blatant example of a country at the brink of severe political unrest where direct involvement of the private sector might indeed prevent a country sliding into anarchy or political extremism. So far though there are no signs that any of the European banks have seriously thought about their broader role in society. Maybe it is because the business case for this kind of CSR is so hard to make...
Similarly, here*, he wrote,
The e-coli outbreak in Germany from last week is an interesting case casting light at the ethics of risk management. See, a very scary bacteria, thought to be carried by the very food we eat whenever we feel like taking a healthier option (i.e. salad vegetables, OMG) has led to a major scare that has given a blow on many of Europe’s farmers and caused them enormous financial troubles...
Well surely, if we were to do some more research on the cultural history of cucumbers, who knows where we might end up? Still, who would've thought that the lowly green cucumber could be such a storage of ethical values and such a powerful a tool for inter-cultural conflict (or maybe cooperation?) So, next time you're at the grocery, remember to take a second look at those cucumbers! There's so much more to them than meets the eye. Got it?
(Again, see copy in his personal journal here*.)
But again, it is in fact Crane and Matten who are the actual authors of this piece:
Last week’s E-coli outbreak in Germany was another interesting case study in the ethics of risk management. A ferocious looking bacteria, thought to be carried by the very food we eat whenever we feel like a healthy option (i.e. salad vegetables) has led to a scare that has plummeted many of Europe’s farmers into severe financial troubles...
Well, if we were to do more research on the cultural history of cucumbers, who knows where we might end up - but Crane and Matten have no intention of jeopardizing the ‘General Audiences’ rating of their blog! Still, who would have thought that the lowly green vegetable could be such a repository of ethical values and a tool for inter-cultural conflict. So next time you're in the supermarket remember to take a second look at those cucumbers. There's so much more to them than meets the eye.
These are simply two examples: they exhibit the rule. You can work your way back through the archive, repeating this procedure with every one of his posts, or at least whichever ones may have yet escaped deletion. For some reason the Craig and Matten site has provided source material for him and others quite regularly, and if you scan their archives, you'll probably recognize much of it.
mahnmut is not, of course, alone.
As was pointed out in the aforementioned censored comments, abomvubuso is another one. His post here about Google Cloud* is in a fact another Crane and Matten piece. His post on Iran and the Gulf* is in fact this interview with Khattar Abou Diab, rewritten as prose and misrepresented as his own work.
Also pointed out in the censored comments: telemann is another culprit. Compare this post by him to this Slate article by Spencer Davis. This telemann post is an impressive bit of plagiarism, it's this Bloomberg article by Cortez and Langreth, this CBS article by Freeman, this NY Times article by Pollack, and this Healthland article by Marchione, cut up and thrown together. Even his little blurb on Stewart is some uncredited quotes from the show itself placed on top of this Politifact article by Gardner Selby.
Again, these are simply examples, and the same procedure can be repeated with all of their posts going back through the archive. These being some of the community's most frequent contributors, and their plagiarism being so consistent, you may start to get the sense of just how many posts there are here that are simply other people's work stolen from them. And I haven't listed all of the culprits of this behaviour. With the problem indicated to you, you can probably identify some others without too much effort.
I'm not sure how the general readership of the community feels about the issue of plagiarism, even as blatant and systematic as this, but given the extent of the fraud executed here, and particularly given the proportion of our moderators involved in this fraud and their considered refusal to acknowledge to you what has been going on, I think the general readership certainly deserve at least to know about the issue so they can judge the matter for themselves.
*EDIT: Lots more deletions since this post was made.
Here is a copy of the second of those mahnmut posts.
Here is a copy of the first of those abomvubuso posts.
Here is a copy of the second of those abomvubuso posts.
EDIT: For a copy of the initial moderator response to this issue and the exchange that elicited it, see here.
EDIT: One of the other culprits is luvdovz. Examine:
She writes (cached version),
So what changes will happen when China eventually becomes the country with the fastest growing, and potentially the largest economy in the world? We might probably be able to witness this moment first-hand very soon. Last month the IMF published a report suggesting that China will overtake the US... The debate about China has needlessly created two polarized groups. One camp is convinced that China is the future lone super-power. Others argue that China is an inherently internally unstable country and faces a looming economic and political crisis. In reality, both sides are true. The only thing that we can be sure of is that China will be a strange super-power.
Rachman/Matyjek write (itself a paraphrase of Rachman's Financial Times editorial here),
What changes will take place when China is the country with the largest economy in the world? We will experience that firsthand very soon. A couple of weeks ago, the International Monetary Fund published a report suggesting that China will overtake the United States... The debate about China has needlessly created two polarized groups. One camp is convinced that China is the future lone superpower. Others contend that China is an internally unstable country and faces a looming economic and political crisis. In reality, both sides are true. China will be a strange superpower.
Dear talk_politics,
Many of you probably do not know that a substantial proportion of the posts in this community, and indeed all of them posted by some of the regulars, regulars including moderators, are completely plagiarized. Except for minor changes presumably meant to make websearching for them difficult, they are simple cut and paste jobs from periodicals and professionals' blogs, used uncredited and unlinked, and passed off as the work of the poster.
I discussed this with moderation, and their response has been to instruct me not to mention it here again, to censor the discussion where I did mention it, and to begin deleting from the community archive some of the offending posts which I had not yet mentioned. (Those who enjoy trying to look at screened comments can go here for the initial exchange.)
The moderator response to this issue being simply censorship of the complaint, and this response being unsatisfactory, I now present the matter to you, the general readership of the community.
Some evidence and some culprits... First, mahnmut.
In his most recent post he wrote,
In a late vote in parliament last night, the Greek PM Georgios Papandreou narrowly won the support of the Parliament for his efforts to pull the country away from the path of bankruptcy. Whether this has given him a second political life is still to be seen. But meanwhile Greece’s financial woes are far from over...
Back to Greece. Unfortunately, the reaction of the European banks to the call for support of the efforts of saving Greece from bankruptcy so far are showing very little sign of such awareness and sense of this broader context of corporate responsibility. The Greek bailout situation is probably an eloquent example of a country at the brink of enormous political unrest, where direct involvement of the private sector might really prevent it from sliding into total anarchy and political extremism. It's obviously not the state that the Greeks should be looking for in this case - it has failed them badly over all those years, but they liked their fairy tale for as long as it lasted. And now they're angry. As for the private sector, I'm afraid the European banks don't seem to have thought about their broader role in society at all. It looks like the same old story - they're trying to lay down low until the turmoil passes, then resurface and continue doing business as usual, for the sole purpose of making profit (sure, for the benefit of their shareholders), and little else beyond that. Maybe because that's the easier way, and the alternative, the business case for corporate social responsibility is just too hard to make...
(This is a post and a culprit I did not previous mention to moderators, and you will see they immediately deleted it, presumably to keep it from notice, but a copy at his personal journal can be found here)
Here is the original piece, published by Crane and Matten:
Yesterday, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou narrowly won the support of the Greek parliament for his ongoing efforts to steer the country away from bankruptcy. Whether this has given him a second political life though is an open question. Greece’s financial troubles are far from over...
The reaction of European banks to support the effort of saving Greece from bankruptcy so far however shows little sign of awareness of this broader context for corporate responsibility. The Greek bailout situation is probably a blatant example of a country at the brink of severe political unrest where direct involvement of the private sector might indeed prevent a country sliding into anarchy or political extremism. So far though there are no signs that any of the European banks have seriously thought about their broader role in society. Maybe it is because the business case for this kind of CSR is so hard to make...
Similarly, here*, he wrote,
The e-coli outbreak in Germany from last week is an interesting case casting light at the ethics of risk management. See, a very scary bacteria, thought to be carried by the very food we eat whenever we feel like taking a healthier option (i.e. salad vegetables, OMG) has led to a major scare that has given a blow on many of Europe’s farmers and caused them enormous financial troubles...
Well surely, if we were to do some more research on the cultural history of cucumbers, who knows where we might end up? Still, who would've thought that the lowly green cucumber could be such a storage of ethical values and such a powerful a tool for inter-cultural conflict (or maybe cooperation?) So, next time you're at the grocery, remember to take a second look at those cucumbers! There's so much more to them than meets the eye. Got it?
(Again, see copy in his personal journal here*.)
But again, it is in fact Crane and Matten who are the actual authors of this piece:
Last week’s E-coli outbreak in Germany was another interesting case study in the ethics of risk management. A ferocious looking bacteria, thought to be carried by the very food we eat whenever we feel like a healthy option (i.e. salad vegetables) has led to a scare that has plummeted many of Europe’s farmers into severe financial troubles...
Well, if we were to do more research on the cultural history of cucumbers, who knows where we might end up - but Crane and Matten have no intention of jeopardizing the ‘General Audiences’ rating of their blog! Still, who would have thought that the lowly green vegetable could be such a repository of ethical values and a tool for inter-cultural conflict. So next time you're in the supermarket remember to take a second look at those cucumbers. There's so much more to them than meets the eye.
These are simply two examples: they exhibit the rule. You can work your way back through the archive, repeating this procedure with every one of his posts, or at least whichever ones may have yet escaped deletion. For some reason the Craig and Matten site has provided source material for him and others quite regularly, and if you scan their archives, you'll probably recognize much of it.
mahnmut is not, of course, alone.
As was pointed out in the aforementioned censored comments, abomvubuso is another one. His post here about Google Cloud* is in a fact another Crane and Matten piece. His post on Iran and the Gulf* is in fact this interview with Khattar Abou Diab, rewritten as prose and misrepresented as his own work.
Also pointed out in the censored comments: telemann is another culprit. Compare this post by him to this Slate article by Spencer Davis. This telemann post is an impressive bit of plagiarism, it's this Bloomberg article by Cortez and Langreth, this CBS article by Freeman, this NY Times article by Pollack, and this Healthland article by Marchione, cut up and thrown together. Even his little blurb on Stewart is some uncredited quotes from the show itself placed on top of this Politifact article by Gardner Selby.
Again, these are simply examples, and the same procedure can be repeated with all of their posts going back through the archive. These being some of the community's most frequent contributors, and their plagiarism being so consistent, you may start to get the sense of just how many posts there are here that are simply other people's work stolen from them. And I haven't listed all of the culprits of this behaviour. With the problem indicated to you, you can probably identify some others without too much effort.
I'm not sure how the general readership of the community feels about the issue of plagiarism, even as blatant and systematic as this, but given the extent of the fraud executed here, and particularly given the proportion of our moderators involved in this fraud and their considered refusal to acknowledge to you what has been going on, I think the general readership certainly deserve at least to know about the issue so they can judge the matter for themselves.
*EDIT: Lots more deletions since this post was made.
Here is a copy of the second of those mahnmut posts.
Here is a copy of the first of those abomvubuso posts.
Here is a copy of the second of those abomvubuso posts.