Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

[sir drinks-a-lot]

After inquiries from BuzzFeed News, Snopes conducted an internal review and confirmed that under a pseudonym, the Snopes byline, and his own name, Mikkelson wrote and published 54 articles with plagiarized material. The articles include such topics as same-sex marriage licenses and the death of musician David Bowie.

FACT CHECK: TRUE

 

[Ziggurat]

FACT CHECK: TRUE

I never trusted them.

 

[BobTheCoward]

FACT CHECK: TRUE

I like how the article says he has been "lying."

Whatever one thinks of plagiarism, I wouldn't say a website story with plagiarism is lying. If you are writing a thesis and submitting that you followed the rules of citing, that would be lying

ETA: I get why buzzfeed cares, but I don't necessarily care

 

[theprestige]

I like how the article says he has been "lying."

Whatever one thinks of plagiarism, I wouldn't say a website story with plagiarism is lying. If you are writing a thesis and submitting that you followed the rules of citing, that would be lying

Plagiarism is lying by definition. Any time you publish someone else's work under your own name without attribution, you are lying.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

I cannot think of a situation in which plagiarism isn't a lie. By definition it means using others' exact words, ideas and thoughts and claiming them as your own. Especially in journalism and academia it is taken very seriously as such.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I cannot think of a situation in which plagiarism isn't a lie. By definition it means using others' exact words, ideas and thoughts and claiming them as your own. Especially in journalism and academia it is taken very seriously as such.

Self-plagiarism is a thing. Although only a minority of people will ever be in a position to actually do it.

 

[Belz...]

Plagiarism is lying by definition. Any time you publish someone else's work under your own name without attribution, you are lying.

Too late. Bob defined lying specifically as excluding plagiarism. It's become his principle for this thread.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Too late. Bob defined lying specifically as excluding plagiarism. It's become his principle for this thread.

Principal Skinner plagiarized an entire life from the real Principal Skinner! It all begins to fit together.

 

[plague311]

Dick move.

 

[BobTheCoward]

I cannot think of a situation in which plagiarism isn't a lie. By definition it means using others' exact words, ideas and thoughts and claiming them as your own. Especially in journalism and academia it is taken very seriously as such.

I don't think for the vast majority of readers of snopes, the author is claiming it is their own. The byline is words many see as something to scroll past. I am under no obligation to read, "by" as a statement that the person is the sole source of ideas not cited. I'm not even sure most people are parsing the author of an article as a person with ideas.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Plagiarism is lying by definition. Any time you publish someone else's work under your own name without attribution, you are lying.

You are assuming that by publishing under the name they are stating that it is their own. There are other explanations like indifference, lazy or simply reject the notion that is what it means. Having writers in general structure the system around it being wrong is beneficial to them, but doesn't mean the person is lying.

It is lying if they say, "this is my original thought," certainly But to read the word "by" as doing that in all cases is absurd.

 

[dirtywick]

it strikes me as theft rather than lying. although it's absolutely a dishonest act.

-edit-

Yeah I guess there's an aspect of lying, but also an aspect of theft. Seems like not worth the time to try and categorize it under strictly one or the other.

 

[grunion]

Elton John plagiarized REO Speedwagon before it was cool.

 

[BobTheCoward]

it strikes me as theft rather than lying. although it's absolutely a dishonest act.

-edit-

Yeah I guess there's an aspect of lying, but also an aspect of theft. Seems like not worth the time to try and categorize it under strictly one or the other.

I don't think of "couch" purses that I buy from the guy on the street as a statement that "couch" came up with that "C" design.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I can state with 100% certainty that no less than 3 articles on (or at least were on) the main Snopes page are literal copy-pastes of posts from the old Snopes ULMB message board presented as articles without permission or credit from members of the board.

I know because they are mine. And I know I was not alone in that.

I'm still bummed about how much damage Mikkleson's actions have done to the Snopes.... errr branding I guess you could call it because, and I can already see this from the usual suspects here, the only point may people are going to take away from this is "A well known fact checker is bad, ergo I now get to be more wrong about stuff and use that as an excuse" He will be the "Justin Smollett" of fact checkers everytime anyone is shown to be wrong about anything I am certain.

 

[BobTheCoward]

I can state with 100% certainty that no less than 3 articles on (or at least were on) the main Snopes page are literal copy-pastes of posts from the old Snopes ULMB message board presented as articles without permission or credit from members of the board.

I know because they are mine. And I know I was not alone in that.

I'm still bummed about how much damage Mikkleson's actions have done to the Snopes.... errr branding I guess you could call it because, and I can already see this from the usual suspects here, the only point may people are going to take away from this is "A well known fact checker is bad, ergo I know get to be more wrong about stuff." He will be the "Justin Smollett" of fact checkers everytime anyone is shown to be wrong about anything I am certain.

It is a weird jump from, "these people are good at stealing other people true facts they researched" to questioning the veracity of information.

it is not cool and super weak they stole from you.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I don't think of "couch" purses that I buy from the guy on the street as a statement that "couch" came up with that "C" design.

It's little tidbits like this that really flesh out online peoples' real lives. I would never have imagined you would be purchasing knockoff purses on the street but it sounds like you do so regularly. Do you resell them, or do you just go through a lot of purses?

 

[CaptainHowdy]

FACT CHECK: TRUE

What? He didn't even make up his own crap? He repeated lies from somebody else without proper attribution?

 

[Thermal]

Half the news arrticles I read about the same story may as well have been plagiarized for how identical they are. If you agree even with an op-ed, your retelling will be essentially the same.in content.

 

[crescent]

I can state with 100% certainty that no less than 3 articles on (or at least were on) the main Snopes page are literal copy-pastes of posts from the old Snopes ULMB message board presented as articles without permission or credit from members of the board.

I know because they are mine. And I know I was not alone in that.

I'm still bummed about how much damage Mikkleson's actions have done to the Snopes.... errr branding I guess you could call it because, and I can already see this from the usual suspects here, the only point may people are going to take away from this is "A well known fact checker is bad, ergo I now get to be more wrong about stuff and use that as an excuse" He will be the "Justin Smollett" of fact checkers everytime anyone is shown to be wrong about anything I am certain.

The ULMB was a fun message board - it led me to this one. Although I managed to get banned from the ULMB about a half a year before it was shut down.

I remember a few experiences similar to yours - I started a thread about a thing I had noticed. Then sometime later the thread would be gone and there would be an article on the Snopes website about the same subject. It was not as blatant as your example, not a word for word reprint of my posts. But it still seemed a bit petty and annoying - especially compared to the modern era when any number of articles are made by stringing together subject specific anecdotes from Reddit - but the articles make it clear where they are getting the material from and the original posts remain up on Reddit.

I still think David Mikkelson and Snopes (which more and more is much more than just David Mikkelson) have done great things in the service of the reality-based-world. But David appears to have feet of clay.