On another site that I write for, we had an interesting plagiarism case that resulted in the writer being kicked off the site. This person had been a member of the site for many months and had written well over 100 articles and reviews which earned them more than $1,000 before they got caught. Here is what happened.

First, this person’s output was much like anyone else in that they reviewed about a game or two a week, and almost always it was something brand new. Their writing was decent and you could tell that English wasn’t their first language. I am an editor on this site, which means I have to proofread and sometimes make minor corrections to the writing, otherwise I can reject it if I feel it needs a serious do-over.

What happened was that in recent months, this writer’s output got to be extremely high, and they were reviewing tons of brand new games the moment they came out. The review would always be written as if they had completed the game, and it made the managing editor (sort of like the Category Lead here) of the gaming area a little wary. When the writer, who is a nerdy 20-something guy with no kids, started reviewing a bunch of children’s games, I think it finally set the main editor’s BS meter off and he started doing some thorough research.

What the editor found was that this writer was taking other reviews and rewriting them. Word for word, you probably wouldn’t be able to find any phrases of more than a few words long that would match, so the plagiarist was clever that way. Those of us who use the typical means of checking for cut-and-paste jobs would have found nothing. It was when the editor discovered that this writer was touching on the same exact points of interest in the same order as they appeared on other reviews that the trend finally emerged.

The content that this writer posted to that site was, technically, original in that it wasn’t a direct copy of someone else’s work. Instead, it was like a bad high schooler’s rewrite of something they found in a book. Once the editor knew which places the writer liked to steal content, it became obvious what was going on. That writer is no longer a member of the site, but the sad thing is that he managed to swindle a ton of money from the site before his scheme got discovered.

I might also add that, as far as I know, this is the first person caught on that site.

That happens here and not just with newbies. There are more than a few TR's and Advisors that do nothing more than crib information from outside reviews as well as ones that are posted here by Eps members. I love it when they slip up and accidentally leave a complete paragraph in place without making minor changes to it.

If you think that someone swindling a site out of a thousand or so dollars is bad then you probably don't want to think about how much money gets suckered out of the Automotive and Electronics section of Epinions with fake / bogus / contrived reviews.

Sad, but true. While it is true that nothing is new under the sun, at least you should try to infuse your work with you. The part that confounds me is it sounds like he really put a lot of work into this, changing and constructing to create untraceable work. Heck, it would be simpler to start from scratch.

People is funny.

Talyseon

Unfortunately it doesn't surprise me. Your lead should have contacted the places being plagiarized as well. While they may not have done anything perhaps some of that money would have been recovered. People seem to take for granted that they can get away with whatever on the internet. Apparently I'm writing in the wrong categories too as I haven't earned anywhere near $1000 for my reviews maybe a third of it if that. Although I am more addicted to the numbers of hits then the money the extra bit could help.

This seems pretty easy to do and it's hard to prove and catch. It's one of my worst nightmares because if that person hadn't slipped up and got greedy, he never would have been caught. Assuming he reviewed hot titles like GTA IV and Halo 3 just weeks after their release would never raise a red flag. Hey most people think those are great games, so why would he not play them and review them?

What sets off my BS meter is when someone writes a coherent and detailed review on a game that was released 24 hours prior. They clearly had to spend a few hours writing and proofreading the review due to the level of detail and polish and the review is filled with details you'd only know by playing the game for dozens of hours or so. So how can they have the game for only 24 hours, have time to play it enough to get that far, and write a coherent review filled with lots of details (assuming they stayed up all night playing it)?

I can also think of a few good ways of plagiarizing reviews which is next to impossible to catch unless you're the original author, but I'm not sharing because this is a public message board. It makes me very wary as a CL during selection time.

Phungus,


Good catch, and I wish anyone who engages in this form of theft, would be given the immediate boot.

Mike

I found something like that here perhaps three or four years ago. A reasonably regarded long-time member had a car review that set my BS detector twitching, so I did some checking. What I found was that the review was re-written from a professional online review.

The original review had a phrase like, "With a quick shift into 4WD and low range, we dashed off in a cloud of dust." The Epinions review said something like, "I shifted quickly into 4WD and low range, and zoomed off trailing dust." If I saw just one or two of such similarities, I'd tell myself it was a strange coincidence. However, this review was filled with them, perhaps dozens of places where the Epinions review was obviously similar to the professional review.

I gave the review an NH and reported it, but the review was never pulled and the "author" never ticketed. In fact, the author denied copying the original, despite me quoting a couple of segments from each in a comment. This particular member hasn't contributed much for the past couple of years, so maybe s/he's moved on.

--Bob

You are discussing allegations that in an online community are considered "Guilty until proven innocent".

Some of these members only make review submissions during 10 for 10.

Other members of this mindset will flood a category with music reviews that are promptly removed and identified.

I have been involved in these cases through my frequent community ratings and encourage these members to stop through frequent kind remarks.

However there is a dark side to all of this.

Some members innocently make review postings that may appear spam but careful observation proves otherwise.

Even worse some members of categories wait for these members to post so that they can stroke some remaining ego that they have left in their lives and accuse them religously of plagarism.

I went through this curmudgeon already this year.

At the end of my, clique based, pompus event, I received no apologies and continued harassment from the members who started the childish prank.

The point of this response is to make you realize that if you get this wrong it ultimately results in member disention.

I deeply hate those who were involved and use that emotion to make continue review submissions in the category.

While there are some people who do this for money others do this for the demonstration of technical writing skill.

All of this crunk that I have gone through has taken a potential Advisor/Category Lead/Top Reviewer down the road of hate.

I only participate here to anger my accusers now.

If you wish to make these allegations, please contact the member offsite and wait for a response.

Actions otherwise just show your immaturity and lack of respect for the human emotion.

~Reuben