......or "What Happens When Caught Plagiarizing"
There has been a spate of plagiarizing behavior going on behind the scenes and sometimes even visibly here, meaning we have seen a rise in folks submitting copied, unaccredited content, in articles and in blog entries. These aren't just isolated instances; we are seeing this happening repeatedly. To the embarrassment of the authors, some are caught and their content is pulled from the queue. But some of those content thieves continue privately to protest their innocence, some brazenly continue in this ugly habit, others apologize but don't remedy.
Public shaming is very unpleasant and while we try to avoid this happening by educating folks who don't understand our zero tolerance plagiary policy, the problem continues.
While I'm sorry for the discomfort that public exposure of these infractions creates, the message obviously needs declaring, again, publicly and unconditionally.
To do so, I'll quote my colleague chris.whealy/blogwho articulated this simply and best.
"Plagiarism is not an acceptable practice. The logic works like this: plagiarism is theft -> theft is socially unacceptable behavior -> socially unacceptable behavior lowers your social status"
Contributors found quoting or reusing content without proper acknowledgement and without adding additional value to the community trove of collective knowledge assets, will find their content pulled and they might even find themselves removed from participation.
gali.klingschneider/blog has done an excellent job of gathering leading practices around blog creation in Community Guidelines found on every page's left navigation. Those who persist in ignoring the engagement rules do so at their peril.
Thanks to those who care about the quality of the site and the behavior of it's community members.
