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1UP, Plagiarizing, and Other Bits of Joy
Nathan writes "1up recently posted their Dead or Alive 4 strategy guide on their website. It didn't take long for users at the Dead or Alive Central forums to recognize their hard work analyzing the fighting game engine had been blatantly pasted into the strategy guide without any credit given whatsoever. While movelists are largely factual and can be argued to be public knowledge, the most incriminating evidence is the section on the evasion system, which had been pasted into the 1up guide with a few reworded sentences. Discussions are ongoing at Gaming Age Forums (with 1up members defending the writer of the guide) and DoA Central.
Perhaps the most interesting bit about this is that just a month or two ago, Dan Hsu from EGM and 1up had famously written an editorial criticizing shady ongoings at other publications." I've reread the different pieces, and while I think the DoA Forums are a large basis of work, people need to read Kate Turabian's on how to cite research because I don't see this as plagiarism in the whole - just poorly cited. Update: 01/23 22:20 GMT by Z : 1up has announced that they've pulled the guide to review the situation.
"Oh, oops, I forgot to cite my usage of these third party pieces of code. It's just poor citation. It's not stealing or anything right?"
Yeah, people need to stop making up euphemisms for things.
I've reread the different pieces, and while I think the DoA Forums are a large basis of work, people need to read Kate Turabian's on how to cite research because I don't see this as plagiarism in the whole - just poorly cited.
Which is exactly the opposite of everything they teach you in school. If you don't cite your sources, you are plagiarizing. Claiming incompetance by poorly citing your work is no excuse...
I once showed a script I wrote to a guy who heads IT security in our company. A few months later in a company newsletter he mentioned the script, how it had helped find and resolve a serious security falw and how he had submitted it to a 3rd party security organization for review. He took full credit for everything and ended up getting an interview with SANS. Granted, the guy is higher up the corporate ladder than me, but he's not my boss and my name was never mentioned as being the autor of the script. For me, this was a lesson learned.
I'll never show this dude a script again! Now, I understand how he got to where he is... making friends with smart people and using their work to gain a reputation that he does not deserve.