| Username |
Post |
| Hari |
Posted
on 17-May-01 10:46 PM
Following the initiative taken by Diwas Khati, here's another example of plagiarism in the Nepali media. This one's by Gaurab Raj Upadhyaya writing in NepaliTimes, supposedly "Nepal's Top Newspaper". Sadly, well-intentioned journalists like Kanak and Kunda Dixit with their superb publications, are not immune to shameful reporters/contributors with very questionable moral judgments.
Plagiarism, in addition to being morally wrong, has larger legal implications as well. And despite the "noble" intentions of editors such as Suman Pradhan of TKP who simply say that the public need not concern itself with the fate of such plagiarists--that they will be "dealt with"--it is simply not enough. In their shameless acts of pilfering intellectual material, these journalists have betrayed the public trust, and as such, any punishment meted out to them begs public approval. Hence, such news should be made very, very public. And the editors, despite whatever their arguments are regarding the "lack of qualified people" to write in their newspapers, should and MUST do a better job at this. It is ultimately their responsibility, together with the writers'.
Here's the latest from the master Plagiarist Gaurab Upadhyaya, who according to Nepali Times, attended the WWW10 conference in Hong Kong (and the following is only the few sentences I could find published elsewhere; I wouldn't be surprised if there are many more within this article):
Dui Paise Musings on a not-so-dui-paise topic,
Hari
Gaurab Upadhyaya in Nepali Times:
http://www.nepalnews.com.np/ntimes/may11-2001/it.htm
"...For the web to scale, programs must be able to share and process data even when these programs have been designed totally independently. The web can reach its full potential only if it becomes a place where data can be shared and processed by automated tools as well as by people."
W3C's Semantic Web Activity Page:
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
"...The Web can reach its full potential only if it becomes a place where data can be shared and processed by automated tools as well as by people. For the Web to scale, tomorrow's programs must be able to share and process data even when these programs have been designed totally independently..."
Gaurab Upadhyaya in Nepali Times:
"...An XSL stylesheet specifies the presentation of a class of XML documents by describing how an instance of the class is transformed into an XML document that uses the formatting vocabulary."
Again, the W3C Consortium has this to say:
http://www.w3.org/Style/XSL/
"An XSL stylesheet specifies the presentation of a class of XML documents by describing how an instance of the class is transformed into an XML document that uses the formatting vocabulary."
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| ashu |
Posted
on 17-May-01 11:34 PM
Hi all,
Great work, Hari.
But I'm getting really sick of all this.
I mean, these many plagiarists?
Jesus F. Christ!!
I had read Gaurab's piece and had in fact -- given the
language of the article -- wondered whether Kunda
had done heavy editing.
Now, it turns out otherwise.
How sad and disappointing.
I'm going to call Kunda and Kanak right now and ask
them to visit these site.
Meantime, the custodians of integrity in Nepal's
English journalism (i.e. editors) need to SERIOUSLY
EDUCATE their journalists about the BASICS of citing
other people's works.
Else, our English journalists and their editors
are all going to be major laughingstock.
oohi
ashu
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| gaurab raj upadhaya |
Posted
on 18-May-01 03:29 AM
Hello hari
This is true. The statements are copied from the W3C literature, provided to me. They are also available on the web.
There is not malformed intention to credit it to myself. It is clearly referred in the writing that various W3C working groups are working in these areas - and the definations are theirs. And clearly the writeup was only intended to provide glimplse of the
technology people are talking about. It was probably a mistake on my part to not clearly indicate it through footnotes or in someother ways.
I re-iterate again, i do not credit those definations to myself.
thanks
gaurab
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| gaurab raj upadhaya |
Posted
on 18-May-01 03:29 AM
Hello hari
This is true. The statements are copied from the W3C literature, provided to me. They are also available on the web.
There is not malformed intention to credit it to myself. It is clearly referred in the writing that various W3C working groups are working in these areas - and the definations are theirs. And clearly the writeup was only intended to provide glimplse of the
technology people are talking about. It was probably a mistake on my part to not clearly indicate it through footnotes or in someother ways.
I re-iterate again, i do not credit those definations to myself.
thanks
gaurab
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| ashu |
Posted
on 18-May-01 04:11 AM
>It was
>probably a mistake on my part to not clearly
>indicate it through footnotes or in
>someother ways.
Gaurab,
Nobody expects a footnoted article in The
Nepali Times weekly newspaper.
And the mistake here is not a "probable" one.
The blunder here is that:
You did not cite the source of those fairly
LONG STRINGS of words that did not belong to
you.
Instead, those long strings of words appear verbatim
in your article WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION.
The key here is: WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION.
And that gave readers like Hari and others an impression
that those ALL were your own words -- when, as evidence
has now shown us, they were NOT.
Quite simply, that's what plagiarism is -- regardless of
your overt or covert intentions.
Now, instead of defending yourself in whatever way
(BTW, your kind of defence-reasoning can also be used
by the other two plagiarists that we have discussed here),
you could well have said:
"Sorry, guys, I goofed up big on this one. But, hey, I am
willing to learn from this mistake. I now urge my editors to teach us all -- with guidelines, examples and everything -- what's plagiarism is and what's not."
That would have been much more acceptable,
instead of your saying now that "[I] do not credit those definations to myself" . . . AFTER the fact the article
had appeared PUBLICLY in your own name.
oohi
ashu
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| Gaurab raj Upadhaya |
Posted
on 18-May-01 06:08 AM
hi ashutosh,
>Nobody expects a footnoted article in The
>Nepali Times weekly newspaper.
>
I agree i "goofed" up, and that is exactly the reason. If it was a journal article - it could be clearly referred to.
If I had known the web addresses of things i referred to referred to those. It was difficult to refer to leaflets that I had collected on my tour, in my writings. Instead, in the beginning, I give the background on W3C and the working groups, so that interested people can go to web and find more.
You might also face similiar difficulties, when you don't know the actual source for information - most often when the sources are photocopied leaflets - and also forwarded e-mails which quote yet some other e-mails.
I have already realized my mistake. This will not happen again from me. I have yet to talk to my editors regarding this issue, but I would definately want to publish a correction and attribute the definations to W3C.org both in print and web.
thanks
gaurab
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| Gaurab raj Upadhaya |
Posted
on 18-May-01 06:11 AM
hi ashutosh,
>Nobody expects a footnoted article in The
>Nepali Times weekly newspaper.
>
I agree i "goofed" up, and that is exactly the reason. If it was a journal article - it could be clearly referred to.
If I had known the web addresses of things i referred to, I would have referred to those in the article. It was difficult to refer to leaflets that I had collected on my tour, in my writings. Instead, in the beginning, I give the background on W3C and the working groups, so that interested people can go to web and find more.
You might also face similiar difficulties, when you don't know the actual source for information - most often when the sources are photocopied leaflets - and also forwarded e-mails which quote yet some other e-mails.
I have already realized my mistake. This will not happen again from me. I have yet to talk to my editors regarding this issue, but I would definately want to publish a correction and attribute the definations to W3C.org both in print and web.
thanks
gaurab
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| Hari |
Posted
on 18-May-01 09:00 AM
Nobody's asking anyone to provide complete references in a newspaper article.
A simple "According to the W3 Consortium, "..."", would have been perfectly alright.
The fact that you neither mentioned the W3 Consortium, nor put those unmistakable quotation marks around the text means that you probably had no intention of crediting anyone.
It is very sad that this 'fessing up with excuses happens AFTER the fact.
Hari
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| ashu |
Posted
on 18-May-01 09:05 AM
>I agree i "goofed" up, and that is exactly
>the reason. If it was a journal article - it
>could be clearly referred to.
Gaurab,
It's good to see you now using active voice,
and admitting the goof-up as such.
As a newspaper reader, I appreciate honest
reporters even if/when they make big mistakes.
Unlke what you mean, the point against plagiarism,
BTW, is SIMILAR regardless of who you write for:
a peer-reviwewed journal or for a newspaper.
The point being: always use proper attribution
when using other people's ideas/words. Anythig
else is considered an act of plagiarism, though
the degree of seriousness, like that for
any mistake, is context-specific.
>If I had known the web addresses of things i
>referred to referred to those.
Look, you are a smart guy. And I am sure you know that
once you admit your mistake, it's best to grin and try to
learn from it.
But by writing the above two lines, you make people
like me wonder about your sense of judgment.
I mean, as a reader, I could well say: What the hell do you
mean gaurab by saying "if I had known . .."?
As a reporter digging for information and reporting
facts, aren't/weren't you SUPPOSED to know those
damn details anyway?
If no, then why bother publishing anything?
>It was
>difficult to refer to leaflets that I had
>collected on my tour, in my writings.
>Instead, in the beginning, I give the
>background on W3C and the working groups, so
>that interested people can go to web and
>find more.
Again, as a reader, I could well say: This
"difficulty" thing is irelevant.
I mean, who cares how "diffcult" it was to refer
to leaflets and whatever? Writing and
reporting -- both requiring a high degree of PUBLIC
trust -- ARE difficult jobs to begin with, hoi na
ta? Else, everyone would be a writer and a reporter.
>You might also face similiar difficulties,
>when you don't know the actual source for
>information - most often when the sources
>are photocopied leaflets - and also
>forwarded e-mails which quote yet some other
>e-mails.
Come on, if those were your sources -- I can ask --
then what the hell were you doing in Hong Kong?
I mean, what was the point of having the article bylined from Hong Kong? If what you are now saying is true, you could
have sat in your room in Kathmandu, and submitted the
same damn thing for publication, right? If so, certainly
readers' interest was not served.
Like I said, the more you defend a PUBLIC mistake,
in whatver way, the more you open yourself to
logical assaults.
And the act is you are smart enough to know this, Gaurab,
right?
So, OK. You made a mistake. You admit it. And we can
all live with that.
After all, we all various mistakes all the time. I, for
one, make tons of mistakes (though not acts of plagiarism!)
all the time.
It's when you try to defend a straightforward mistake with
this excuse or that excuse in public, then readers like me
lose patience, politeness and get all juiced up to destroy
the reporter's arsenal of excuses.
>I have already realized my mistake. This
>will not happen again from me. I have yet to
>talk to my editors regarding this issue, but
>I would definately want to publish a
>correction and attribute the definations to
>W3C.org both in print and web.
Beautiful.
Yes, that's the way to go.
Best wishes,
oohi
ashu
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| Hari |
Posted
on 18-May-01 09:06 AM
And by the way, even though the XSL Stylesheet statement is a definition (still in no way permissible to be copied without credit), the other sentences in the introduction are CLEARLY NOT definitions.
I am just very pissed off that you come out here with a plethora of excuses AFTER getting caught.
Hari
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 18-May-01 02:19 PM
Since W3.org documents are traditionally the most widely read
documents among comp scientists, it was shocking to know that
they were too used for such purpose.
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