plagiarism on systems wiki?

[Andrea]

I've started reading Anon11's entries on systems wiki and have realised that most of these entries are copy/paste jobs from other Internet sources (not often quoted on the wiki). I guess one could do anything on a wiki, but I had the impression that most material had to be original so that others could go in and modify things? It's not exactly appropriate to start editing Noam Chomsky?

[Teiana]

hmm. Anything from another source should be quoted and identified as such. just delete it?

[Andrea]

It's not just that, it's also the style. If you compare the page on "propaganda":

https://systems-place.wikispaces.com/Propaganda (n.b. I moved the source reference to the top of the page because when I started reading it I thought "gosh! This person writes really well!!" and then i realised from the hyperlink at the end that it was actually Noam Chomsky's work!)

to, for example:

http://www.globalissues.org/article/157 ... -the-media

okay, the latter is not a wiki, but you can clearly see that the author has used a selection of quotes to provide a more structured analysis rather than a personal "polemic". As a potential co-contributor, it would be much easier for me to add value to the latter.

I'm not saying that the material added is rubbish -- it's actually really good stuff (although sometimes I wonder what the "systems" connection is ), but I think a different style needs to be adopted for wiki contributions.....

[Teiana]

i think if someone rates a piece of writing that exists on the internet highly and thinks it should be 'in the wiki' the thing they should do is write a review/discussion of it, and include a link to the original. Their review should ideally explain why (from their perspective) it's relevant to our systems thinking. I don't see any sense in copying the original into the wiki, though it would be fine to quote from it ( as we might here) as long as the original source is obvious and due credit given. This would allow others to 'join in' in the discussion of the original article, perhaps then bringing in other links..The wiki ( in my ideal world, and yes i haven't been contributing and yes i should be) would be a living breathing thing and not a 'dead' encyclopedia created from pasted in things from other places. There's no point reinventing the wheel, but there's loads of point in starting discussions about 'wheels' and how they relate to systems ideas, or could benefit from them.