Plagiarised content
Today while reading blogs, I came across a blog post that was submitted for Colgate competition. I had opened it with great expectation and when I saw the post, I couldn't see beyond the red haze in front of my eyes. Why? Because this story is plagiarized from the famous story that is doing rounds on FB since last few months, if not a year. My question, how can a writer disrespect the intellect of his/her readers by posting such unethical stuff. Secondly, how did his story got accepted? Isn't there volunteers to check on these issues?
I know I might be breaking few rules here by posting the link of the story but I can't make my point without attaching it.
Indipolice: Please delete it if it's going against the rules.
Plagiarized crap:
http://dare-to-think-beyond-horizon.blogspot.in/2013/05/until-death-do-us-apart.html
Reason: Spelling error
Ok....here is the story. Have a field day now/
http://community.babycenter.com/post/a23660497/marriage-_a_must_read_found_on_fb
people there saying its giving round since 2004 
OK, read both posts now. Had not read Ankit's post till now.
The fact is that this story is a very old one. This may be doing rounds on FB today, but it is older than FB itself! So, obviusly who shares it on FB saying his/her own is also lieng. But, anyway that's not the question here. The question here is about the intention of Ankit. Though he has said that he did not know about this story being already published, believing him or not is on people.
As TF said, it's like getting inspired from the famous Rabbit and Tortoise story. Do you call it plagiarized? You may, you may not. I would once again request to get in touch with the blogger personally before putting a gun onto him/her. Someone's reputation is at stake here.
Ok I have noting against the blogger personally...but as per me this is what happened....
"I found a post of someone else through someone else (Doen't matter if it was published or not), tweaked it, put it on my blog, claimed it was my work (Not even put a caption that it can be inspired)....people found out, questioned my intent....I apologised"
Its good that the blogger has apologised...good for him....and what action Indiblog takes, their decision..... but if you are saying....it was okay to copy because he was ignorant the work was published, I am really not getting the point...really??
But like Pankti....now I am out of this discussion obviously my line of thinking is very different from others!!!
Just a little correction to what you said:
"I found a post of someone else through someone else (Doen't matter if it was published or not),
In this case, the writer did not know that this was a post. He was narrated a story by a friend and he posted it. It's your decision to be out of this discussion which I think is the easiest thing to do. But then I have to think twice before writing every post. If I write based on some discussion with someone, do I write a disclaimer everytime that this is based on a discussion with so and so and that it might have been post eralier, too?
it was okay to copy because he was ignorant the work was published
As far as I undestand, the word copying can be used only if someone has got an inspiration from some post. In this case, when one was not aware that there has been any post of this sort and truly believed what his friend said, how can it be copy?
Accusing someone of plagiarism without knowing his side of story, then expecting an action to be taken against him and then leaving the discussion half-way, is that OK?
I still stand by my beliefs that this is called plagiarism (as would ANY editor), but if we are going to give a benefit of doubt here, who am I to say anything? I have said enough and I have even given enough evidence to prove my standing. My case rests here.
The problem with facebook is that its search SUCKS. Secondly, finding the author of that FB story is impossible (unless use crawlers of the level that Google use and that too would guarantee the first post, not the author necessarily)
I can try a few Google searches to try and find a link to the "original" story, but I don't think it's gonna be easy.
I think we should stop disscusing the plagiarism issue until we find that story and give the author a chance to say what he thinks.
Shaumik, I have given the link to the story.
Stephen, the key here is "thorough investigation".
Even if I believe that Ankit did it intentionally, he is far behind from Sourav Pandey when it comes to plagiarism. And people are free to read IB blog how they had handled the situation. It was not made public before his side of story was known. All posts in questions were checked and even after that he was given a chance to apologize via that blog post.
I was just going through the thread again. Suddenly I noticed something. You are asking them to step on Ankit's shoes, which is exactly what you don't want them to do I guess. (Guess you meant stepping into his shoes. But stepping on his shoeswould mean just the opposite)
Yes @TF. Absolutely correct. I was thinking what someone was thinking when he asked that we step 'on' his shoes.
Turned out to be easier than I thought (I underestimated my Googling skills- got it at my first try). Here are a few instances of the SAME story.
http://www.livelifehappy.com/30-days-of-carrying-my-wife/
http://www.snopes.com/glurge/carry.asp
https://www.facebook.com/DeepLifeQuotes/posts/203312683104097
Can someone please tell me now who is the original author of this story?
don't think it's possible to trace it!
One apect we must keep in mind is blog-o-sphere is still quite unstructured and informal and works in some ways like an extension of forwarding mails to friends and posting statuses on facebook. So clearly the rules are not defined as to what constitutes plagiarism and what does not. Mostly things work by social consensus - a more of a mobocracy. If lot of people feel something is plagiarism, it is . If not, it isn't.
But things are changing. These kind of lucrative contests are becoming more popular. Revenues from ad sense are probably going up. So in time more well defined norms need to come in for blogging, especially the more lucrative kind of blogging and in all likelihood has to align with the norms of traiditonal publishing and journalism. So in that context Pankti's comments are valuable and it is time all serious bloggers start re-evaulating their content with this lens before posting.
TF, not everything which has similarity can be termed as plagiarized. I remember reading somewhere long ago, that everything question has been answered, everything has been written as the world started thousands of years ago. Do we have anything called original now?
In my opinion, plagoiarism should be linked to the intent.
Animesh - These kind of arguments are meaningless. That is the reason we have laws and rule books to have everyone on same page whether we agree or not. And blog-o-sphere as such has no rule book. So from that angle anything is acceptable in blog-o-sphere.
I can extend your argument and say even theft is not wrong. Everything on this earth is nature's bounty. Humans have started putting walls and boundaries and claiming things as their's and their descendants'. There is no justification for a man born with nothing to call his own to respect these unfair walls and boundaries. But then if he does not, police will kick his ass. So he has to. I would say it is not fair. But that is how the world is.
@TF, nature's bounty?!...that's good one....
Animesh - Possibly in future we may have a bloggers' guild formulating law. Till then, it is going to be mobocracy. People are going to get together on Facebook and lynch whoever they think is a plagiarist. That is why I generally avoid all these plagiarism witch hunts on facebook as it is very much a grey area with no clear lines drawn.
this cul-de-sac investigation stole my afternoon nap.... Ahhh 
how?
By the way I noticed, the ending is different in Ankit's post. The difference is so significant that the entire punch in the original is lost.
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