You know what really grinds my gears? Plagiarism. Stop stealing MY content and write your own you stupid useless leaches.

A few months ago during the whole 13th and 86th split up event, I was notified by Projekt late one night that my guide was still up on the 86th site. I was confused because my post containing the guide on the other forums was deleted and my account was disabled. Surely it was gone from the site, how would it still be up? I clicked on the link that he gave me not knowing what to expect, but once I landed on the page I saw a post put up by Axx and to my surprise was my guide, reposted with only slight modifications, without asking my permission, without gaining my consent, and without giving me proper credit for being the original writer of the guide.

I do not remember any point in my entire time spent on the internet that I was more furious as after I followed that link. I felt exploited, unappreciated, and most of all, I felt betrayed. When I posted that guide up on what would later become the 86th forum. I trusted Axx to not exploit my guide for nefarious use and especially not without my permission. This trust was misplaced as both happened, my guide was used for nefarious use and he certainly did not have my permission to repost it. I took action in the only way I knew how. I grabbed my contact data for Axx and began work on an angry email requesting that the guide be removed at once. However during my email I decided that instead of requesting outright removal, I would be the bigger man and give them my permission to host the guide, as long as they would follow a few conditions. I finished the email and sent it. Here is the email I had sent:

Quote :

Dear Axx.
It was recently brought to my attention that you have decided to continue hosting the new user's guide I had written for the 13th and altered it for your own clan. The guide in question can be seen at: http://86shadows.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=265&sid=13ec22f9354bf1ab7f4f135b9e54fe79
You have reposted this guide without asking for my permission or even notifying me of its reuse and modification. You do NOT have my permission to use it yet you have used it anyway. You have decided to take my hard work writing, organizing, and formating the guide and you just all the glory for your own without doing the work I did. You swooped in and took your chance to use my work as your own and take all the credit for it. In no part of the guide am I given the credit for making it so members will think it is yours. There is a word for this act and it is plagiarism. In case you are unfamiliar with this act you can read up on the issue at: http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html

As you can see your reuse of my New User's Guide fills many of those descriptions of plagiarism and I am obviously very unhappy about it. However I do offer you a resolution to the problem. I will give you my permission to host MY guide on your forums if you consent to the following:
1. Directly under the title "New User's Guide" there must be the following, underneath in bright yellow and with large font:
Original Version Written by: Spino Prime
You must pledge that no matter how much you edit or alter the guide that this statement giving the credit I feel I deserve will ALWAYS be in the guide. I don't care if it is reposted in another topic or completely rewritten, that statement MUST be on there.
2. I am notified when ever you add another author to credit, so for example if Dtiger was to make improvements to the guide, if you want to credit him and add: Edited by: Dtiger, under the guide title, I must be informed of this addition by email, and the credit this new editor gets goes UNDER my own.

If you cannot comply with these rules I have specified then I would request that you take the New User's Guide down immediately. Seeing what you have requested today (the deletion of your account and all your posts) I think these demands are very reasonable and seeing as we have complied with your demands I would expect you to return the favor.

Just because there is bad blood between you and Bronx doesn't mean you get to screw me over as well.

Pretty reasonable email right. The conditions are not too hard to meet and are very reasonable. I did pretty much all the work, I wrote it, I figured out the proper format for it to follow. I should be entitled to demand what ever rules of usage I want on MY work. However this was the response:

Quote :

Hello Spino...

Thank you for your email.

Our New Member Guide is indeed a derivative product of the efforts of many people. The contributors should be recognized. I have corrected that oversight by adding a footnote at the bottom.

I will always appreciate our working together on some many projects.

Best Regards

Axx

A footnote, a FOOTNOTE. You son of a *****. My condition was that you gave me credit in the header, right under the title. Apparently Axx was illiterate as well as untrustworthy and uncooperative. When a writer makes some small edits to Hamlet and republishes it, do they only put "Written by: William Shakespeare" as a footnote at the end of the play? NO it is on the front cover in big letters. Also, the efforts of many people? It took many people to make minor edits to my guide in order to suit their clan. Apparently the 86th is made up of the worst group of writers on the face of the earth or Axx is lying out his ***. Take your pick ***hole. Neither looks very favorable to me.

Axx thinks that by citing me in a footnote at the end he is automatically not guilty of plagiarism because it no longer matches this definition:

Quote :

- to use (another's production) without crediting the source.

However it now matches this definition of plagiarism:

Quote :

-copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not

Even though he did cite me, he is still committing plagiarism. The edits that were made to my guide were minor at best making it still the majority of his work. The format is still almost exactly the same, many of the same sentences are still the same as mine.

So none of my conditions were followed and the guide was not removed. Again I was outraged. My (overly) kind gesture was pretty much ignored. I pretty much gave up after that because Axx was not going to follow my demands. I was thinking of making this post on the forums back then, but I decided it was not the right time at all. This event needed to blow over, and not be brought back up by me. So I remained Silent about the whole event except with a couple clan members I had talked to about it. I am sick of being silent. Why? Because just today I realized my guide was plagiarized once again, by another clan. Except this time it was even worse then before. Legend and his pack of ******bags had never really bugged me before. Probably because I was on a different console and a different game division. So I was relatively unaffected by their actions of immaturity. However this would all change today, when I discovered that Legend too was plagiarizing my work.

http://fox-hound.forumotion.com/t2-new-users-guide

The worst part. I don't even get a footnote. Someone else "wrote" this guide. Of course we all know this is not true. Legend can't even write a legible and cohesive forum post let alone a Gigantic guide to assist new members of his forum.

After seeing this I just had to make this post. I had spent 5 hours working on that guide, getting the format down, writes and rewrites, edits and research, and these people think that they can just avoid spending this amount of time and work by copy and pasting my guide and only making a few edits. Hey kids, make your own guide. You have no right to steal my work in order to let you get a guide up in 10 mins or less. Put the work forward instead of being a useless leach who depends on others to create content for you. I am sick of having my work stolen without my permission or even properly giving me credit. What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Why don't you post a reply or comment?

Oh BTW. Next time I post a big original work, remind me to copyright it so I can sue these ***holes who try and take my work.

Dude, I'm glad I entered the clan after all that stuff happened.
Honestly if there is one thing that makes me mad is using other people work without asking and giving credits. You have all the right to be angry about this because this low, really low.

Wow, whats wrong with people? Is it such a big deal to give credit where credit is due?

iron they are like that over there

I think its more of a matter of can't they come up with their own content in the first place.

thebronxbomber wrote:

I think its more of a matter of can't they come up with their own content in the first place.

ohohohohooohoo and you have just witnessed a SLAP moment!

Sorry for the random reply that just made me laugh xD
But seriously, I thought I recognized their New Users guide... And before he only placed 86th members names in the footnote. Dumbarses.

This is pathetic.... just pathetic... I am sorry Spino. They just don't have the capability to do things right... and you are right. These ***holes deserve to be sued for the BS they do.

Spino,

I've talked to you on several occasions about this matter in the past and I knew how much it felt like a knife in the back. Before all that happened..I didn't know what to do when the clan split. Afterwards, I knew that the 13th was the home for me..I'll never be a part of people who have to steal, lie, and cheat to get their way.

You do so much behind the scenes work for the 13th and seeing how much this angered you..I really felt for you.

This may not seem much coming from me but..sincerely..thank you for all you do.

projekt3000 wrote:

Spino,

I've talked to you on several occasions about this matter in the past and I knew how much it felt like a knife in the back. Before all that happened..I didn't know what to do when the clan split. Afterwards, I knew that the 13th was the home for me..I'll never be a part of people who have to steal, lie, and cheat to get their way.

You do so much behind the scenes work for the 13th and seeing how much this angered you..I really felt for you.

This may not seem much coming from me but..sincerely..thank you for all you do.

Same here. Same here.

I also want to thank you for all the work you do for the 13th.

It's a shame that people choose to be lazy and plagiarize. Why won't they give you credit? It's just typing a few more letters...

thebronxbomber wrote:

I think its more of a matter of can't they come up with their own content in the first place.

You see, thats just it. Why do you depend on copying someone else's content. Just write your own. Honestly, yes the guide took a while to write, but if you want to create one you should do it yourself.

The guide is perfect, I'm sure it took a huge amount of time to get it like we see it right now.
Just ctrl c - ctrl v is sad... And this is a huge understatement..

+1 vanhoucke

i also cannot accept the fact that they did that the AHOLE he should give you full credit for it

spino you have a right to be angry it's your post so which means they should have YOUR permission and spino you should not take it fully as an insult them coping your post means they dont have the BRAINS and BA*LS to write their own so they are just lazy dumb Fu*ks

flame211 wrote:

spino you have a right to be angry it's your post so which means they should have YOUR permission and spino you should not take it fully as an insult them coping your post means they dont have the BRAINS and BA*LS to write their own so they are just lazy dumb Fu*ks

He speaks the truth. While it pisses me off that they did this all it does is show they have no capability to withhold a structure so complicated as a Military-based, CoC, Orderly, Civilized gaming clan. They just don't. Just proves to show how much of a lazy dumbass group they are.