What Plagiarism Isn't

[spiralleds]

Greetings all. I'm spiralleds, one of the mods for this community. Things have been quiet lately, which I would like to think means a lull in plagiarism, but unfortunately is probably more so just a lull in being aware of it. We mods thought we'd take advantage of that calm, whatever its source and try something a different. A bit of proactive example of

Comments

Re: Part 2

[spiralleds]

It's pretty much canon that Roger was a bastard and a Watcher of the stick-up-his-butt variety. We know this from multiple references from Wes and from the robot the copy of the man that showed up on Angel. Making him a "heavy" or disruptive influene post-'Chosen' is practically a gimme.

Agreed. *g*

The funny thing is, I had read nocturnalista's story and didn't even notice the similarities because the stories are so utterly different from one another. However, nocturnalista did notice, and actually asked what she should do about it, because she was so worried about accidental plagiarism. I spotted her entry, and immediately put her mind at rest by saying that no one in their right mind could even consider her a plagiarist, even without her worrying about it in her LJ.

I'm so behind on reading my flist's stories it is embarrassing, so I can't speak to the particulars, but this strikes me as one of the ironies of life that the innocent (nocturnalista) tend to be more self-aware and concerned about even the perception of wrong doing while those who are doing actual plagiarism bop around in without a care in the world about their actions.

Someone on a Yahoo newsgroup made mention of the fact that I was posting this Xander-in-Africa story where Roger had made the accusation that Xander was building his own personal army of Slayers loyal only to him. This person then mentions that "of course" Xander is innocent in my story. What they wanted was for someone to actually take my idea and "re-write it" so that Xander is, in fact, doing just that: building himself a fanatically loyal Slayer army in Africa.

Oy. It is like a rewind/rewrite ficathon, except without the deeply important volunteering of the original author.

While the challenge to "re-write" me certainly raises my hackles, if someone does take up the challenge, I can't automatically scream plagiarism.

It does get terribly grey, doesn't it? I'd imagine part of the bated breath is not simply the concern of plagiarism of that which you've put energy into: setting, characters, plot, etc, but how exactly the remixer would or would not recreate the story in a way in which Xander still says in canon. Although, I suppose the latter becomes an issue for stop_out_of_characterness instead of stop_plagiarism, eh?

You do attract rather ballsy reader/wanna rewriters. Oy.

Re: Part 2

[spiralleds]

Huh. It wouldn't create my mock stop_occness