I had a co-worker at a magazine who plagiarized an article. Really obviously. In that case, he got fired, and went off to j-school instead.

Ruth Shalit is another example of someone who made a career post-plagiarism, and last I heard Stephen Glass was going to LAW school, of all things. So, it's not even always a career-ender in the real world.

Also, in real-world instances, no one is gonna come hack your web page or mailbomb your ISP or something like that.

Second sister really hadn't known, but whatever she's written on her own and submitted on her own since then has been blackballed by most legitimate publishers on general principle.

OK, that's gotta suck, especially if she honestly didn't know. But I can see why the publishers would stay away from her.

Someone who submits articles to a newspaper in Tennessee has apparently been plagiarizing them from newsweeklies all around the country, including the East Bay Express, which is how I heard about it. When questioned, his editor admitted that he'd never actually met the guy and that he did all his filing by computer.

Apparently nobody thought it was odd when they ran a detailed story about a would-be rap star framed by a corrupt cop, set in Memphis -- the original story had been about Oakland, where such things are not only common but expected. Huh.

Plagiarism scares me. Thanks for the explanations.

When I was reading the rants, I assumed it was like the Cassandra Claire case, where someone took sections of a published work and claimed this as new. This sounds more like it's about copying without permission and general asswipery.

And in an abrupt subject change, I've been tossing around the idea of starting a Velvet Goldmine fic archive since Lipstick Traces seems to have disappeared into the ether.

What are you, nuts? (she said, affectionately). That archive never came back, huh? grumble grumble impermanency of the net mumble.

The Wall of Shame thing bothers me only so much as it doesn't seem to distinguish between people who were just freaking ignorant, and people who were malicious. It wouldn't have occurred to me to take clips from people's vids, but only because I honestly hadn't ever thought about it, so the one poor schmuck who's up there, and who has taken down all the stuff he had up, does seem to be kind of pilloried.

The whole thing's more symbolic than anything else, but I definitely understand the perspective of those who are participating.

What are you, nuts?

Yes. Quite. Although if I thought I could get someone else to maintain it, I'd just offer the webspace.

That archive never came back, huh?

Hasn't yet, doesn't seem like to, no.

And while I totally support the purpose of Gray Day, I have some problems.

If I don't participate, people are going to be mad at me.

If I do participate, people are going to be really mad at me.

I'd also have to spend the night at work in order to restore everything after the 24 hours were up. I don't have broadband at home, and we're not talking about a handful of files, not to mention reconfiguring the software.

Just thinking about it makes me need a really stiff drink.

Shrift, can you just add a paragraph to the index pages of your sites stating that you support the principle behind it, although you are not participating yourself because of technical restrictions?

It's a thought, and one I'll have to spend some time pondering...

Shrift, assuming you're running Apache, it's really easy to set it up to reroute the links to archive.shriftweb org.

In the shriftweb config --

t virtualhost *
servername archive.shriftweb.org
redirectmatch permanent .* [link]
/ virtualhost

There's also a way to do this using IIS. The only key is being able to munge the server config file -- my techie friend says if you're running Apache he can talk you through it, or if it's IIS he can look it up.

Shrift, assuming you're running Apache, it's really easy to set it up to reroute the links to archive.shriftweb org.

Assuming I've ever done it before. (Edit: That's a slam on my skills, by the way. It's a good idea.)

Thanks for the suggestion, though -- I'll look into it. I might have the access to do that.