Conservapedia talk:Blatant plagiarism

Maybe I'm opening a can of worms here, but is there really a problem with plagiarism on wikis? Almost seems like a no-brainer that one might copy a chunk of text from a readliy-available source to start an article. Now, if they keep that without EVER changing in that's one thing. I used to teach and had a zero-tol. policy on the subject, but aren't wikis a different situation?  Flippin ;-) 14:21, 25 May 2007 (CDT)

Surely that would depend on the policies of said wikis. Trashbat 14:26, 25 May 2007 (CDT)


 * Conservapedia maintains a no plagiarism policy. -Ĭ₠ŴΣĐĝё 14:28, 25 May 2007 (CDT)
 * Is it entirely fair to blame this on CP? Isn't it the shameful editor who added the plagerism who is at fault?Bohdan 14:29, 25 May 2007 (CDT)
 * It is up to them to enforce their own rules, as Ice pointed out. Nice sig, Ice, BTW.  Flippin ;-)
 * HAHA! you spelled enforce wrong. What do expect from a nodak.Bohdan 14:36, 25 May 2007 (CDT)
 * Dont worry flippin, I corrected enforce.Bohdan 14:40, 25 May 2007 (CDT)
 * consider the fact that aschfly was so amazed by these articles here promoted plagiarizer to sysops. -Ĭ₠ŴΣĐĝё 14:37, 25 May 2007 (CDT)
 * "What do expect?" Bhodan? Anyone's keys can stick.  Flippin ;-)
 * I agree it's not fair to blame the original offense on CP, Bohden -- that's on the editor. But when CP rewards the editor with sysopship for these edits; allows that sysop to revert attempts to fix the problem; allows that editor to lock pages with these problems to prevent future fixing attempts; and ignores repeated comments and emails pointing out plagiarized material; then I think it's fully fair to blame CP.  And yes, all of that has happened.  Read the pages linked to from this category and read the CP talk pages cp:Talk:Zach_Johnson and cp:Talk:Morality.  If you want, I'll forward you mail I've sent to Andy about the subject.  I can't forward you his responses, because I've never received any. --jtl talk 18:21, 25 May 2007 (CDT)
 * No response, Bohdan? --jtl talk 15:28, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

Medical/Immunization terms
Andy's working through a glossary of medical/immunization terms. It's very definitely copied, but I can't tell from where; not because I can't find it, but because he's not even close to the first person to copy it. Among other places, it's at the CDC, the Texas state health department and Sabin.org. It's possible the original source allows copying even without attribution, but my reading of the Commandments doesn't. Anyone want to write this up? It'll be a pain, since he's doing a separate entry for each term. --jtl talk 15:28, 2 June 2007 (CDT)
 * It looks like it's the CDC version; he's giving terms which are missing from the other two. He finished the "I"s, then looks like he may have switched to copying from this nuclear science glossary. --jtl talk 18:50, 2 June 2007 (CDT)
 * He's also using this ozone depletion glossary. --jtl talk 21:10, 2 June 2007 (CDT)
 * And CPWebmaster's working through this US gov't one, or one related to it (so far, I haven't found a version that contains both 'germane' and 'reapportionment'. I suppose he could be using more than one, but really, what're the chances?. --jtl talk 22:55, 2 June 2007 (CDT)
 * One thing that I find amusing is that Ashfly would often ask me to cite very simple statements (of the "leg bone connected to the hip bone" variety) claiming I didn't have the authority to declare them true. Here he is, some idiot, just copying randomly, without any actual knowledge.--PalMD-yada yada 23:00, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

todo list

 * CDC vaccine glossary
 * ozone depletion glossary - aschlafly
 * US gov't glossary, exact source unknown -- CPWebmaster; and now DeborahB-- wonder who'll be our next sysop, hmm?
 * biometrics entry from here -- other related? (thanks Arthur Dent for the ID)
 * copyright law glossary, source unknown -- aschlafly
 * Genetics Home Reference -- SharonS (thanks again Arthur Dent)
 * cp:Lemuel Haynes from -- BethanyS (not a sysop, but in the running -- SharonS's sister, I think) (and now she IS a sysop)
 * cp:Robert H. Goddard from (last paragraph at least) -- BethanyS.  others from her of similar quality appear okay -- from non-web source or actually sometimes copying and others not?  Or maybe of just varying amounts of rephrasing?  cp:Harriet Tubman is clearly a paraphrase of
 * DeborahB's 13 colonies chart from here.
 * Andy's doing a military glossary, maybe this one.
 * [] is the first paragraph of []
 * [] is the first paragraph or so of [] (copying from wikipedia!)
 * [] is the first paragraph or so of []; Brian was banned for trying to fix this and the AFC article; TK says he copied it from "the AFC website". I can't find it there, and the edit history of WP makes it clear it was built organically there.
 * [] from []
 * [] is a very lightly reworded version of the first paragraph of []
 * [] is two paragraphs from []
 * [] from []
 * [] from []
 * [] chopped up from (artlessly -- look at that first sentence fragment) from []
 * [] from []
 * cp:Werner von Braun - the source is cited, but only for the first few sentences, and no indication is given that it's quoted
 * from
 * Andy's now working on this energy glossary - (Update, June 23/24: Andy has apparently reached "S": cp:Solar pond, cp:Solar power tower, etc. I'm not sure if he went through all other letters between B and S in that time, though.)
 * Part of cp:Fiscal conservatism from an old version of the wikipedia article
 * cp:FERC largely from FERC's about pages; link given to FERC's website, but not the individual pages. The page was entered in Geo.plrd's contest
 * cp:Freedom's biblical section from [this sermon]; footnote copied too, no cite of real source. earlier section copied from some dictionary or dictionaries; first two pieces from encarta; the other bits from thefreedictionary.com and its thesaurus
 * DeborahB's now working through a business/stock market glossary, probably this one.
 * cp:Donald Rumsfeld from this history.com bio

Discussion
I'd like to keep the list as an updated joint effort rather than the normal talk page comment/response format, unless someone has an objection --jtl talk 14:59, 3 June 2007 (CDT)


 * All his recent articles are plagiarized, I mean the ones he made today. He created over a dozen articles in 10 minutes all of them relatively long. -Ĭ₠ŴΣĐĝё 15:01, 3 June 2007 (CDT)
 * BethanyS? I assume that's a 'she' not a 'he'.  or someone else? --jtl talk 18:24, 3 June 2007 (CDT)


 * This is from here--PalMD-yada yada 17:03, 4 June 2007 (CDT)
 * TerryH has said before that he's CreationWiki user Temlakos. Assuming that's true, this one's okay. --jtl talk 17:09, 4 June 2007 (CDT)

Not sure if this has been covered somewhere, but Andy also helped himself at this space science glossary, apparently. Some articles were rephrased (but obviously based on the glossary, like BATSE - not to be confused with GOATSE... and you can now make jokes about goats and moonbats...), others copied (like -3/2 relationship). It mostly sticks out because I don't expect Andy, a lawyer, to suddenly add a bunch of stubs about things like Buoyancy-Driven Convection or Interplanetary Triangulation... especially not fairly technical terms with technical explanations without much wiki-linkage or formatting. --Sid 19:14, 15 June 2007 (CDT)

Congress definitions
(the beginning of this conversation happened on User talk:E.Wig, then was moved here.)

If I read one more dictionary term about the Congress, I'm gonna puke.--PalMD-yada yada 16:17, 4 June 2007 (CDT)


 * That was fucking random! --Ë. 16:18, 4 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Yeah, i just grabbed the first user page i could bitch about it on. Ive been cruising recent changes, and someone cracked open a dictionary and started typing.--PalMD-yada yada 16:21, 4 June 2007 (CDT)


 * EWig10 is the AIM. I could be qualified in some Third World countries to provide therapy. --Ë. 16:23, 4 June 2007 (CDT)


 * If you don't mind spoilers, you could skip ahead to the end of this to see how it turns out (hint: "yield time"). --jtl talk 16:32, 4 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I guess it's too much to ask that they just post a link to there instead of copying the whole thing.--PalMD-yada yada 16:42, 4 June 2007 (CDT)


 * But that would only be one article. This way it's up to 161+26=187 (fewer if she skips the 'term list' pages for 'k', 'x' and 'z' since they don't have any words).  How will they justify making her the next sysop if she doesn't have hundreds of new pages?  And this is way easier than, y'know, writing. --jtl talk 16:48, 4 June 2007 (CDT)

Waves! Heeeelllloooo! Since you just parked your asses here, and I don't know you, perhaps you could like just clue me in on what you are talking about? Or not. But throwing out those "they's" makes me think they are watching me.... --Ë. 16:44, 4 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Maybe they are!! Anyway, go to cp:Special:Recentchanges, and then look at this. Any questions, let me know.  And thanks for the hospitality.--PalMD-yada yada 16:46, 4 June 2007 (CDT)


 * Check out DeborahB's recent edits on CP, Mr. Wig. We probably ought to find a more appropriate place for the convo, though, yeah. --jtl talk 16:48, 4 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I dare someone to go fill in "Committee calendar". Debbie missed that one somehow. --jtl talk 16:51, 4 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I don't have any socks. Nice idea though.  Makes a point without injury to the site or anyone else.--PalMD-yada yada 16:52, 4 June 2007 (CDT)
 * E, if you don't mind I'll move this whole discussion to Conservapedia talk:Blatant Plagiarism.
 * She just started on a new dictionary. Nothing wrong with alphabetical, but, jeez, Holoprosencephaly? Not the most critical article!--PalMD-yada yada 16:56, 4 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Two different people, two different dictionaries. SharonS is doing genetic terms (started on those yesterday or the day before), DeborahB is doing US Senate (picking up where CPWebmaster left off yesterday -- are they siblings too?) --jtl talk 17:05, 4 June 2007 (CDT)

Hahahaa! --Ë. 17:00, 4 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Ha! --jtl talk 17:05, 4 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Well, good, someone is paying attention. Also, i posted on the plagiarism page a few recent things I notices...articles copied entirely from creationwiki and other type sources.   If they were originally written by cp editors, they should at least say so, or somehow point to the fact that they are posted elsewhere.--PalMD-yada yada 17:10, 4 June 2007 (CDT)


 * TerryH fixed it. Thanks.  LOL, btw, poor little debbie and her "committee calendar"--PalMD-yada yada 17:18, 4 June 2007 (CDT)


 * Looks like there's dissention in the ranks -- Andy likes the "concise entries". Not surprising, I guess, considering his recent kickstart entries... --jtl talk 17:27, 4 June 2007 (CDT)


 * It almost looks like Andy said, "Let's get a bunch of new VSA's up real quick like and flesh them out over the summer". I notice that it's mainly kids today...and sysops. C ® acker 17:43, 4 June 2007 (CDT)

Harriet Tubman
Someone should answer cp:User:Jpark's question: cp:Harriet Tubman doesn't talk about freeing other slaves because this bio doesn't. --<font face="Monaco,Consolas,Courier New,Courier,Fixed">jtl talk 17:47, 5 June 2007 (CDT)

Be careful ...
... if you want to point out plagiarism, or even (le gasp!) correct errors that result from blunt Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, then you are 'a big moron' and an 'ass'. --<font color="#000088">ויִ<font color="#220066">כִּ<font color="#550044"> נ<font color="#770022">תֶּ<font color="#aa0000">ר ֶפּ רֶ תֵּ ר  שְׁלֹום!
 * Or it counts as "garbage posts from trolls, mostly". --Sid 07:45, 17 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Almost like they did it on purpose, isn't it? --Ë. 11:41, 17 June 2007 (CDT)
 * That fully depends on your definition of "they" in that case... *cocks head* --Sid 11:44, 17 June 2007 (CDT)

Additional Examples
I currently have a list of about 15 articles on CP that are plagiarized from Wikipedia (some of which are very political). I notice nobody has added any side-by-side comparison pages recently; is that the preferred method for calling out plagiarism, or would you prefer just a list of the articles and the original source. I'm more than willing to do the side-by-sides, but I don't want to spend time on it if that's not the prefered method.--Brian 22:43, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I've added Conservapedia:Blatant plagiarism/United States Air Force to the list, and I'll try to work on creating other comparison articles tomorrow.--Brian 23:25, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I like the side-by-side format -- it makes it very easy to tell what's copied -- and I'm not sure anybody else much cares about the plagiarism at all. As to not having done any recently -- my get up and go got up and went.  Maybe this weekend.  The new ones you did look great, thanks!  Not that it's necessarily any of my business, but how do you choose which to just fix and which to write up here?  Or did you get banned again? --<font face="Monaco,Consolas,Courier New,Courier,Fixed">jtl talk 00:54, 7 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I got banned again by TK after my additions here (apparently because I neglected to update my user page here to say that TK was gracious and benevolent enough to unblock me the first time, or at least that's what TK says). I fixed the ones that were just simple copy-and-paste from a public domain source, but I am planning on writing up the ones that copy from Wikipedia or a copyrighted source, since I got banned from CP the first time for correcting those articles.--Brian 09:02, 7 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Consider reporting to the FSF the GFDL violations of Conservapedia. Document it well and preferably non-trivial situations that CP does not take any action to correcting.  The GFDL gives permission to copy if you adhere to its license - if you don't its standard copyright law to deal with.  --Shagie 21:08, 20 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Strong work--PalMD-Goatspeed! 09:17, 7 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I think wp:Wikipedia talk:GFDL Compliance might be the place to report it initially. Pseudomonas 09:52, 1 November 2008 (EDT)

Other place confusion about goverment works
Andy is correct that material created by the US Government is able to be used by a person without copyright infringement. However, not everything that is at a government site is created by the government. For example, http://www.conservapedia.com/Image:Harvester-ants.jpg was originally created with the statement. While that is a .gov site, it credits http://www.insectimages.org/ with a CC with attribution license -- the image was not created by the government and thus didn't have its copyrights released to the public. Thus, look at the images and text that are on CP from the government sources and see if they are licensed to the government or created by the government. If it is licensed, find the copyright holder and inform them of the violation. --Shagie 21:19, 20 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Is it still there? We should add it to the section I just started on image copyvios (didn't really want to make a new article, but we could, of course). <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms">human <font color="#00AA00">be in 19:00, 30 August 2007 (CDT)

Template for copied articles in use
It looks like the image license template is being used over there as attribution for copied text as well (see here, which was taken from here). I just don't get it though. If you're going to copy a page, why even bother with the copy-paste + a few word changes tactic? Why not just replace the entire page with an external link to where you copied it from, especially if you're going to use a huge template that says  "Guess what? I copied this!" ? I guess the fact that some people there are using attribution at all shows something of an improvement, but still...it ain't that hard to actually do honest research if you're interested in a topic.--Bayesupdate 20:30, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
 * That's just Karajou not fully understanding "How We Do Things Here". See this talk page edit where TK tells him to keep that template only on the Image pages, not in article space. Yes, it's pretty ironic that Karajou most likely tried to be honest and gets lectured for it.
 * And I don't know. Nobody knows a good answer to the "Why?" question. My best guess is: "Andy's ego needs pettings, so let's create many articles that sound all smart and stuff so Conservapedia can be a great intellectual resource!"
 * I think it had been suggested during the contest to simply have ONE page with links to ALL the .gov sources and stuff so people can go there. But that was quietly ignored. (Oh, and I did a link fix in your post) --Sid 20:41, 5 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Ah, interesting, I didn't see that. It caught my eye because the source cited doesn't have the images in the article, but the image template links to it anyway.--Bayesupdate 20:51, 5 September 2007 (CDT)

Concerning RobS (moved from Conservapedia Talk:Rampant and Monumental Plagiarism by sysop RobS)
Copying from WP articles you wrote yourself is okay, but is supposed to be noted. RobS is WP users Nobs, Nobs01 and Nobs02.

He did contribute to the WP AAA article, but the only significant addition he made was this edit, adding a "Communist Influence" section. The rest of what he copied into that CP article was written by other people, as far as I can tell.

He actually did at least start most of the WP articles about these communists, though (Robert Miller is the only one where he neither started it nor was an early contributor; Frederick Vanderbilt Field he didn't start but contributed to early). Whether he was careful to only copy his contributions is another story entirely... --<font face="Monaco,Consolas,Courier New,Courier,Fixed">jtl talk 19:39, 5 July 2007 (CDT)


 * Oops. Have I committed a rampant and monumental gaffe?  Should this page be withdrawn? SJIHAS 10:13, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I think it needs to be toned down some, at least. It might be interesting to go through all the people articles and see how much of the copied material is from the various Nobses, but that would take a while.  The AAA and Robert Miller articles at least are clear cut, though. --<font face="Monaco,Consolas,Courier New,Courier,Fixed">jtl talk 12:55, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * RobS tells me (in email -- not sure why not here) that he wrote the Robert Miller WP article as well, and that the page history was evidently lost in a delete + partial resurrection. I'm following up with him on the AAA. --<font face="Monaco,Consolas,Courier New,Courier,Fixed">jtl talk 17:05, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I have blanked the page pending further research. Sorry about that.  BTW, I looked around on your user page, and it seems that you have done a lot of homework on these issues! SJIHAS 20:14, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I'm gonna keep the page open, pending your research :-P I look forward to it though...-<font color="#CC0000">α <font color="#A0A0A0">m <font color="#0099FF">ε <font color="#003399">σ  (!) 20:15, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Also, it appears that the number of issues that remain after we take out the Commies will be small enough that they can be cited individually on the "blatant plagiarism" page. Even though I like the sound of the phrase "Rampant and Monumental Plagiarism".  :-(  SJIHAS 20:18, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * Oooooh. I see.  Sorry.  Transfer over the right quotes, and when you're done, I'll nuke the article for ya.-<font color="#CC0000">α <font color="#A0A0A0">m <font color="#0099FF">ε <font color="#003399">σ  (!) 20:21, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I see you have reinstated it. I think it's somewhat libelous, and apparently RobS (In person!  The actual person!  Is pissed off at something I did!  Awesome!) is complaining.  I'd really rather you blanked it again.  My intention, when blanking it, was that anyone can see it in the edit history, so the discussion can proceed in any case.  BTW, AmesG, I'm a great admirer of you and your (vain) attempts to bring sanity to CP. SJIHAS 20:35, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * I agree blanking it is the best course for now. FWIW, RobS didn't sound particularly pissed off. --<font face="Monaco,Consolas,Courier New,Courier,Fixed">jtl talk 20:38, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

Thanks SJIHAS dude! Sorry for mindlessly reverting. I'll blank it for ya. It's just that I can't stand to delete things that piss off RobS.-<font color="#CC0000">α <font color="#A0A0A0">m <font color="#0099FF">ε <font color="#003399">σ (!) 20:43, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

Not to worry. I've got more on the way -- the "Gang of Four", listing Andy "Rabid Dog" Schlafly, TK "The Knife", Rob "Pit Bull" S, and Ed "Lap Dog" Poor. SJIHAS 21:15, 6 July 2007 (CDT)
 * What about MallCop? CЯacke ® 21:22, 6 July 2007 (CDT)

When I asked RobS about the AAA article, he sent me this link, implying he was substantially responsible for the WP article. I pointed out that that skipped over 34 versions, and the version prior to his first contribution had three paragraphs which I believe are in the CP article (but can't verify due to today's boycott). He hasn't responded yet. --<font face="Monaco,Consolas,Courier New,Courier,Fixed">jtl talk 00:49, 7 July 2007 (CDT)
 * The conversation continued some, but RobS switched into his baffle-them-with-bullshit mode. I think his position on the AAA article is that anything he copied, either he wrote or it came from official government sources originally.  But it's honestly hard to tell, and if that is his claim I doubt he's right about it. --<font face="Monaco,Consolas,Courier New,Courier,Fixed">jtl talk 18:27, 9 July 2007 (CDT)

Email from RobS
Fairly early on in this, RobS sent me an email saying:
 * If you read any of those articles, you would see (a) they all were written by me, and (b) they all remain virtually intact in WP since I've written them. In fact, I recieved an NSA Barnstar for my biographies of Venona project spies.


 * RationalWiki already identifies me as Nobs01. http://www.rationalwiki.com/wiki/Wikipedia#_note-7


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nobs01


 * Still not to late to move the page before we cite this as a grave error and distortion in RW.

His "NSA Barnstar" on WP seems to be a case of mutual Barnstarring between him and someone almost as loopy, though I'm not denying that RobS has put an enormous amount of energy into his work in this area.

His threat to go public on CP with this is a little curious. Of course, threats of the form "still not too late" to (apologize to me, withdraw your complaints about my abuse, ....) are his standard practice, but I wonder whether CP would actually place a mention of RW anywhere. They don't seem to have any mentions at present. Sort of like the way Bill O'Reilly won't permit anyone to mention Keith Olbermann's name (or, until recently, Al Franken) on his program. It would be really cool to have a mention of our "grave errors" in the Breaking News section of CP. SJIHAS 12:51, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

It seems that they have the same problem at CP itself
In the current "contest", in which we at RW are dutifully noting the Rampant and Monumental Plagiarism by most of the participants, it seems that this problem has been raised by CP'ers. See cp:User_talk:Aschlafly. Someone (TimoT) brought up the Venona articles, and RobS pointed out that it was his material. TimoT has, of course, been blocked. SJIHAS 12:51, 12 July 2007 (CDT)

Careful here - permalinks
I put Tina Turner back in, since several "phrases" were obviously lifted whole from the "source". I also think that the CP article links should be permalinks, not "dynamic", since a plagiarized article may get watered down over time from the original copy. If we care about this, let's check the diffs and see where they lead? <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms"> ħ uman  03:44, 30 July 2008 (EDT)
 * If we accuse CP of plagiarism then we should provide proof. Most articles have a side by side analysis. Andy's legal case and Boy George are fairly obvious but I thought while the Tina Turner article had some similar phrases it was sufficiently rewritten to be eliminated. After all much of Wikipedia contains phrasing similar to the original sources. I wouldn't be surprised if there are many instances here. The title of the article is "Blatant Plagiarism" (Shouldn't that P be lower case?) and Tina isn't particularly blatant. We should provide permalinks and also keep a copy of the original article in case it gets memory-holed. [[Image:jollyfish.gif|25px]]<font color=Blue>Genghis   04:06, 30 July 2008 (EDT)
 * PS The "memo to Andy" is probably on the weakest article of the lot. Why put it there? Surely somewhere at the top of the page would be more appropriate, after all it's not just one article, it's all of them. [[Image:jollyfish.gif|25px]]<font color=Blue>Genghis
 * Re: the memo to Andy, yup, it should be in the intro. And as far as exact ripoffs... if these aren't permalinks, the articles may have been rewritten/edited since they were stoled.  What we have to do is check the diffs one by one, article by article, and see if there are better links than just "the article as it is now"? <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms"> ħ uman  04:32, 30 July 2008 (EDT)
 * Surely if they've been edited so they're no longer plagiarism, then that's what wikis are for? After all we slag them off for holding on to old Wikipedia stuff after it's been corrected. 05:04, 30 July 2008 (EDT)
 * Good question. I still think if you plagiarize at some point, it's plagiarism.  Now, if the entire plagiarized material is removed, yes, the entry should be removed.  If it is just altered and worked on (derivative, in GFDL terms) it's still plagiarism.  Like one of the ones I restored, unique descriptive phrases were identifiable from the source still. A clear sign of plagiarism.  But anyway, to summarize: 1. We should be linking to diffs, they are often more clear; and 2. If the rip-off is removed completely the entry should be removed.  IMHO, anyway. <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms"> ħ uman  18:27, 30 July 2008 (EDT)
 * I added extra refs to TT plagiarism as the one given only had a small contribution. Diffs on their own don't always show up the copying so the side by side works well IMHO. [[Image:jollyfish.gif|25px]]<font color=Blue>Genghis   18:32, 30 July 2008 (EDT)
 * Oh yeah, I just looked at one of the side-by-sides, they are much better than a few quick links. A lot of work, though. <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms"> ħ uman  19:44, 30 July 2008 (EDT)

Why the poster of Conservapedia's Boy George article is a plagiarist (and Jinxmchue is stupid)
Conservapedia's article on Boy George was posted by William123. The Yahoo Music bio on Boy George was written by William Ruhlmann. One and the same person? Jizzonmyshoes seems to think so. Here's some reasons why not.


 * 1) William R is a professional journalist. Why would he hide his surname? Embarassment at writing on CP? If so why not use a completely fictitious name?
 * 2) If it was the same person why not post the article in it's entirety instead of making a some token edits?
 * 3) CP editor William123 has also plagiarised an article on Shequida. Surely a reputable journalist wouldn't just post one of his own articles and then copy others. If he felt the need to post one of his own articles then he would probably have posted several of them.

<font color=Blue>Genghis   12:05, 30 July 2008 (EDT)

Theopedia
I removed the following:


 * cp:Arguments_for_the_existence_of_God (Plagiarized Article) from here. Edit note says it was copied from Theopedia as public domain, but as far as i can tell the text doesn't credit this anywhere.

Reason: Theopedia:Copyrights - Please see: Public Domain

<font color=Blue>Genghis   14:04, 30 July 2008 (EDT)

A CP technique that doesn't work.
Sometimes in a cut-paste article on CP the editor cite the same plagiarized source at the end of each sentence, convincing themselves that is is not plagiarism somehow. An example and the original. Corryundefined 14:26, 27 August 2008 (EDT)
 * Heh, reminds me of a story a professor friends told me, where one of her students submitted a completely plagiarized paper, and upon being told that words written by others had to "be in quotes"... the student re-submitted the paper after adding quote marks at the beginning and end. <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms"> ħ uman  16:24, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

WP without credit
cp:Scots seems to be basically cribbed from wp:Scots language, without mentioning the source, which AIUI is in violation of the GFDL. wp:Wikipedia talk:GFDL Compliance would seem to agree with me. Pseudomonas 09:41, 1 November 2008 (EDT)
 * In addition, text copied from Wikipedia must be covered under the GFDL after copying as well, and Conservapedia doesn't follow the GFDL for it's copyright (instead using it's own 'license' that seems to be drafted by a 5 year old). InaVegt 09:52, 1 November 2008 (EDT)
 * There is probably a get out if an editor posts the same material at both WP and CP. However, I remember someone at CP having contributed an original article to WP and later submitting it to CP with other users' spelling and grammar corrections. <font color=Blue>Генгис    10:36, 1 November 2008 (EDT)
 * Technically speaking (IIRC, IANAL), the spelling and grammar corrections make it a collaborative work, and no longer solely the ownership of the original author. If he hadn't put his work under the GFDL (by posting it to wikipedia), stuff would be fuzzier (As in, I'm not sure of what would happen), but under these circumstances, the original author would have to follow the GFDL as well. InaVegt 10:46, 1 November 2008 (EDT)

Newfoundland
I was amazed by the quality of the Bibliography in http://conservapedia.com/Newfoundland

Quality is not something we see often at CP... Of course it was cut and pasted from Wikipedia's entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Newfoundland_and_Labrador
 * Uh, oh! Better make some changes.  10:56, 11 March 2009 (EDT)

Wesleys tours the parks
WelsleyS is currently looting all of wikipedia's national parks pages, changing the color patterns a bit and will probably claim all that great work his own... I hope Mr. Schlafly's moral standarts will prevail and he will erase all of this 'caus it would be DECEIT to claim his work as conservapedia's own...

( sorry for my syntax, i'm a French-canadian having great fun following these kooks... )

The Irony
I find it very ironic that this site has a page about how Conservapedia violates copyrights given the amount of copyright violations I'm finding here at RationalWiki. Also, keep flaunting how you've reported Conservapedia to copyright holders; may RationalWiki soon join the ranks of the DMCAed. DMCA Fanatic (talk) 03:09, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Copyright violations such as? Examples are a good thing, you know. 03:11, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You'll see when you get a DMCA notice my friend; I'll let the copyright holders take care of it. DMCA Fanatic (talk) 03:13, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Go ahead and call out the alleged violations and I'll address them. If you're the copyright holder feel free to actually comply with DMCA and follow these instructions. Thanks buddy. 03:13, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I already gave the copyright holders Cogeco's contact (who is hosting this site). ;) DMCA Fanatic (talk) 03:15, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * So, in other words, you're just bluffing and concern trolling. Good job, nicely done.  03:18, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * This site is self-hosted, you moron. Also, the vast majority of images on this site are either self-created or from the wikiwhatever commons. We self-police fairly well, if you'd care to tell us where our violations are.  Being DMCAd is no big deal, by the way.  It costs nothing but either the defense of a use or hitting "vaporize".  03:39, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually about two-thirds are CP screenshots, all of which have this CP screenshot on them explaining their copyright. 03:50, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * DMCA Fanatic has got the ISP providing the Internet connection to the server mistaken for a hosting company. 03:56, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I think some of the Plagiarism is inherited.
This last time I was blocked from CP the reason given was that I put up an unoriginal article, however all I had done was edit someone else's very schlaflyesque article. If you think back to the pre-oversight days you may recall that they used to blank pages and restore them in order to wipe the histories, I think that that mode of inheriting the parody of another through laziness and obfuscation should probably be in the article. I'm a horrible editor so I should probably refrain. --Opcn (talk) 18:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Mankind came from Ethiopia more than 3.2 million years ago, suggests CP
"'Ethiopia is credited with being the origin of mankind. Bones discovered in eastern Ethiopia date back 3.2 million years'" That text appears to come from the US Department of State, and has been on CP since December 2007. Since CP is a Trustworthy Encyclopedia, this proves without any doubt that young earth creationism is wrong. Thanks CP, you've saved us a lot of effort. Deadparrot (talk) 02:02, 3 August 2012 (UTC)