Plagiarism
I just got an e-mail from Scoobie (of the recently shut down SW/TS) regarding how one of the sites listed on my sidebar allegedly ripped his layout off. While I’m not in a position to say if this is true or not, because the frames layout SW/TS uses is fairly generic, this does give me the chance to rant on plagiarism. Why do people kick up such a fuss if they get their page layout ripped off? I mean, it doesn’t sound like a big deal does it?
People with personal sites spend a great deal of their spare time constructing and maintaining them. They don’t get anything tangible for their efforts. All satisfaction is derived from interaction with the “net community” and the enjoyment of creating something – just as a painter (amateur or otherwise) finishes off a painting. The site’s layout and content is all they have to show for their hours slaving away at the keyboard, unable to work up the willpower to go outside and get some sunlight due to the impulse that thumps in the brain saying, “Update! Update!”. So if you rip off a layout that someone has made, or copy and paste (without attributing credit) news stories that may have taken time to compile, you’re taking the only thing a webmaster has. That is why it’s treated so seriously.
Not that I’m singling Roosh.net out in particular, but even something like Soljah’s post on “where Easter eggs come from” can annoy. It’s unlikely that he found that pic, in an obscure corner of the net, himself. It’s more likely that it came from Shlonglor’s site. If you nab a link from another site, credit it. At least Shlonglor linked to the site that had the pic, not just copied it to his web space.
3:30am (GMT +10.00) tomorrow 
