Wrong Way Kids - Issue I

Chapter 8
ObituARies

Chapter Description: Things will never be the way they used to be, no matter how many of us wish to stop the clock and turn it back. An editorial.

This month’s ObituARy is... plagiarism.

At about this time last year, we had a person -- doesn’tmatterwho -- come into our community and steal sumner else’s story, marketing it as his own.

Fortunately, this vagrant was swiftly tarred, feathered, diapered, and sent to a writers’ conclave in Romania.

But then another one of our own, wishfulthinker, was led to evidence that one of his stories was stolen, cut up, and reposted on DeviantArt as the work of another, far less talented writer. He’s still working on that situation with the appropriate authorities (yes, DeviantArt has “appropriate authorities” (and I’d hope “inappropriate” as well (oh do I ever love a deviant, inappropriate authority))). Spank me again; I’ve been a bad baby.

Let’s make it one of our core values that this bullshit will not stand. Some of us have been here since the 90s, have seen the entire history of the site in its ups and downs... some of us were here when others among us were in diapers. Or... still were in diapers? Or had just been reintroduced to... oh, you know what I mean.

That means that we as a community have a lore -- a hivemind that needs to be treasured and cherished and carried on even when some of our fellow members move on to other things or other planes. Let us continue to police ourselves and impress upon newcomers that there will always be people who are more clever than those up in the office.

So be good to yourselves, and one another.

luvs,

lt

2014 NOTE:

If you see a provable example of plagiarism, please report it to the webmaster(s) and/or leader(s) of the appropriate web sites. They take this stuff very seriously... so speak up!