Quantcast
Channel: Is plagiarizing content from SO by SO users not a concern for SO? - Meta Stack Overflow
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 2

Is plagiarizing content from SO by SO users not a concern for SO?

0
0

NOTE: Question is completely different from the linked one (I am the author of both), and has to do very specifically with the two flags discussed in-text, which were not at all part of the discussion there.

In the process of uncovering a systematic plagiarism case between SO and Data Science Stack Exchange (DSSE), briefly summarized here, I came upon some rather peculiar cases, where the user had plagiarized questions from SO; quoting from the linked post:

  • User sees a question in SO with a bounty of 50, posts an exact copy to DSSE without attribution, but unfortunately (!) he doesn't get any answers there, so the act stops here
  • User does the exact same thing as in the last bullet above with three (3) more SO questions, this time without bounties; again, no answers at DSSE, hence no further acts here at SO

For two (2) out of these total four (4) posts, in addition to the respective flags raised at DSSE, I opened flags at SO as well; here they are (with names redacted):

Question has been copied & posted to Data Science SE by another user, [REDACTED], possibly trying to get an answer there in order to win the bounty here: [LINK]. Such behavior by the said user seems systematic - pls see my 2 previous custom flags

and

Question has been copied & posted to Data Science SE by another user, [REDACTED]: [LINK]. Such behavior by the said user seems systematic - pls see my 3 previous custom flags

The reception of these two flags, respectively, was:

declined - Please flag this on datascience.se, if they were to plagiarise DataScience.SE answers here, we'll deal with that then.

and

helpful - It would be much more productive for you to flag this on the datascience site. We can deal with their exploits here, not with their actions there.

The detailed status (declined/helpful) of the flags is not my concern here, because essentially they both claim the same thing:

If an SO user plagiarizes us somewhere else, it's not our concern, and it should be just reported there, not here.

Let me clarify here, before proceeding, that this discussion makes sense under two assumptions, without which the flags above are obviously meaningless:

  • The offender is an SO user
  • The questions themselves (especially well-written and well-researched questions, with reproducible examples, code, plots etc) are themselves content, too

Given the above, I must say I find the verbal response to both flags puzzling; as I see it, such plagiarizing of SO stuff by an SO user should indeed be a concern for SO itself, independently of what concern it may be for the "receiving" part of the plagiarism (here DSSE); if not anything else, the Attribution Required policy seems crystal clear on that.

So, what am I missing here? And what should I do in a similar situation in the future, other than flagging as I did?


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 2

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images