http://xialanxue.blogspot.com - It happened, as I was told, about 4+am today. "Wee Shu Min" became the top search item at technorati and the mainstream media finally reported on the Wee Shu Min-Derek Wee Saga. I also found out that my postings on this saga have been severely plagiarized by several blogs. Most have cut and paste my initial report "RJC girl Wee Shu Min gets slammed by Netizens" into their own blogs and modified the links such that it would appear that it was written by them.
While I am flattered that many bloggers, blogders and even mainstream reporters/journalists look to my blog as a reliable source of information on the most current ongoings in the blogosphere, I am angered by the recent cases of plagiarism. One blog in particular made my blood boil - I discovered this group blog operated by 4 bloggers (not 1 but 4 freaking bloggers!) lifting material wholesale from http://xialanxue.blogspot.com with very subtle changes to links/text in my original articles so that unfortunate readers who stumbled upon those posts would think that they were the original authors of those postings (and they have been doing it since September!)
My GOD! If the blog were operated by just one person, I can still understand. But no. it's manned by 4 bloggers!! 4 humans with brains which I presume they would use - I was wrong.
I believe the situation now is worse than when this blog broke news of the Tammy NYP scandal. The smart bloggers, seeing that my traffic was far exceeding 20,000+++ unique visitors a day quickly linked to the report on my blog which was published before mainstream journalists even heard about the news. Traffic quickly spilled over to those blogs because of the automated blogspot trackback mechanism which shows the links of those who linked to my original posting so that my visitors could actually explore them if they wished.
The dumb ones cut and copied my entries onto their own blogs wholesale, without providing a link back to acknowledge the source. While they waited for the much anticipated traffic spike, they were left high and dry. They failed to understand how the mega search engine google works and the penalties google imposes on their websites based on those dumb acts.
And don't get me started on the journalists. The Tammy NYP incident showed how lazy some mainstream journalists are. A modern day journalist already has his/her job simplified due to the proliferation of citizen journalism. Blogs like mine gather information and publish stories before they are reported in the news. They serve as a good point of reference for the mainstream journalists. However with the digital age, information is updated rapidly and the first drafts published by bloggers might still need to be refined as new information becomes available. Lazy mainstream journalists whom merely paraphrase blogs like mine without doing their own proper research and without even crediting the source will soon find themselves ridiculed and out of a job. The situation is getting more common - when the mainstream journalists are criticized, they blame the bloggers. When they are praised, they take all the credit themselves. Bloggers who do all the work gathering information to provide comprehensive summaries are not even mentioned in their report.
But then again. what's new?
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2 comments:
Not everyone has learnt the etiquettes of referencing their source. I suggest you put up an editorial policy like I do on my blog. Not that it will help the nitwits much, but it will help educate the smart but ignorant ones.
Welcome to being a Singaporean...
That's what most Singaporeans do best...Take and not give back...
Not even credit the author for the use of the story...I think these people need to be sued to understand what plagiarism is about
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