Eddie Brock
Master Bruce
Half Pint
Supermaxx
Altered Tundra
SepJust as Impaqt had said, I don't think @mdk and the RPGC crew should beat themselves up too much over this. Who would have thought someone would submit multiple plagiarized works for a contest that would give you, what, a self-esteem boast from praise and a little electronic trophy. Unfortunately, this is one example where the saying "this is the reason why we cannot have nice things" applies. I'm sure we all thought that no one would plagiarize an entry. I don't know about those who live outside of the US, but plagiarism (or rather not plagiarizing) is shoved down our throats from high school and even through college. At least for me, I thought that, since there was no "real" prize in this contest besides the two things I already mentioned, there was no real motivation to "cheat". Apparently, I (and probably many of us) was wrong.
I think one problem was that many of us have stated multiple times that we were uncomfortable giving critiques on the poetry. I did not really read the poetry entries because I knew I would not be able to give any good feedback. I'm sure I was not the only one who did this. Since probably not all of us took a close look at some of the entries, the plagiarized poems were able to slip through the cracks, so to speak. So, again, just as Impaqt has already said, part of the task of finding any plagiarism must be taken up by the community, too, since many of us are the ones reviewing the entries.
I don't know what else can be done. Sure, we could throw the entries through programs that check for plagiarism. However, these will not always catch cases of plagiarism for various reasons (limitations on the framework for Google, etc.).
I think one problem was that many of us have stated multiple times that we were uncomfortable giving critiques on the poetry. I did not really read the poetry entries because I knew I would not be able to give any good feedback. I'm sure I was not the only one who did this. Since probably not all of us took a close look at some of the entries, the plagiarized poems were able to slip through the cracks, so to speak. So, again, just as Impaqt has already said, part of the task of finding any plagiarism must be taken up by the community, too, since many of us are the ones reviewing the entries.
I don't know what else can be done. Sure, we could throw the entries through programs that check for plagiarism. However, these will not always catch cases of plagiarism for various reasons (limitations on the framework for Google, etc.).
