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Problem

We have this answer for this question. The answer is ultimately helpful, the only problem is that it is a plain copy-paste of this blog post as I mentioned it in a comment:

Although this is a great explanation, it is a plain copy-paste from this blog. If that was written by you that is OK, otherwise you should state that this is someone else's work. You posted a "more" link at the end, but that isn't enough. You should clearly mark that this was written by someone else and that is the source. – totymedli

Then the "writer" (copy-paster) of the answer replied:

@totymedli FYI look the answer completely and the last word please. Mohammad already mention the source and know the ethics. Main thing is accurate answer no matter you copy-paste or write your self but mention source always. This is good practice and already mention by answer giver.please see – Mohammad Faizan Khan

Is he right? Does a "more" link count as proper attribution?

BTW, when I noticed he talked about himself in third person I checked out his account (because it has the same name as the answerer) and it turned out that this guy has two accounts. If you check out them, you can see by his Twitter account that he is indeed the same guy. Can you have multiple accounts?

Other legal problems

Even if this is OK, the Terms of Service of the original post's site explicitly says (emphasis mine):

  1. OWNERSHIP AND PERMITTED USES

The site, and all content and other elements available on or through the site, are the property of Safari and/or its content providers, and are protected by the laws of the United States and other countries, including their copyright and trademark laws. Your use of the site does not transfer to you any ownership or other rights in the site or its content. The site may not be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, transmitted, modified, indexed, catalogued, mirrored or distributed in any way, in whole or in part, without the express prior written consent of Safari.

How does this change things?

High scale copy-paste

Is it really OK to answer a question by copy-pasting a full blog post as-is, without any additional detail or comment? Even if it is, in this size it feels a bit unethical to gain reputation for this. Shouldn't these type of answers be community wikis?

What to do?

There are so many factors in this case that I have no idea how this should be handled. Hance this post.

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  • 3
    Maybe he just really hates referring to himself in the first person? I've similarly come across users who avoid any and all uses of first-person pronouns (me, myself, I, mine, etc), butchering their sentences by stripping the words out where they otherwise would be, or going so far as to rewrite their sentences to avoid having to use the pronouns.
    – BoltClock
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 4:02
  • 5
    Also I like how [link-only-answers] is in the tags - I consider answers like these essentially link-only answers because, at the end of the day, they still contain zero original content.
    – BoltClock
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 4:06
  • This also provides a detailed approach to attributing content meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/318337/… although it's for tag wikis, the same principles apply
    – user3956566
    Commented Aug 27, 2016 at 9:32
  • Regarding the multiple accounts, that can happen (e.g. when you lost your credentials) without malicious intentions. There are two years between answer and comment, and they have the same user name, so it's kinda obvious, only the use of third person is weird. You should suggest him to merge the accounts.
    – Bergi
    Commented Aug 27, 2016 at 16:52

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Is providing a "more" link sufficient attribution? No. Definitely not. A link saying "more" is to indicate that the answer is yours, and additional information can be found at the link. It's quite different to say that the content is all someone else's, and providing that source. The answer is not at all clear that none of the content is the owner's original work.

Having multiple accounts is fine so long as you don't do anything that couldn't be done with a single account, such as voting for yourself. That said, creating a second account in order to comment on posts of your other account under the guise of being a 3rd party, stating that your other account didn't do anything wrong, while probably not technically a violation of any rules, is certainly very shady. I don't think there's much to be done here other than calling the person out on it.

The fact that the user doesn't have the legal right to reproduce the content here is of course highly relevant, especially given that, in context, there's really no possible way you could argue this is fair use, the way you could if he was simply quoting a small portion of the post, and using it within a post of his own original content.

Is it really OK to answer a question by copy-pasting a full blog post as-is, without any additional detail or comment?

No. That's both copyright violation and plagiarism.

What should you do?

Flag it for plagiarism, I suspect it will be deleted.

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    This. There's nothing more to say.
    – elixenide
    Commented Aug 24, 2016 at 18:52
  • @EdCottrell See the edits to the second paragraph; is that all correct? It's the only think I wasn't sure on.
    – Servy
    Commented Aug 24, 2016 at 18:53
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    Yes, that's all spot-on. Having multiple accounts? Fine. Having multiple accounts and using them to vote, comment, post, flag, or otherwise act as distinct people in ways that one account could not do? Definitely not fine; should be flagged for moderator attention.
    – elixenide
    Commented Aug 24, 2016 at 18:56
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    Tacking a link on the end of copied text is never sufficient attribution. It does not signal which words were or were not your own. I deleted the answer, and it's a shame that they'll keep all the reputation they acquired from this.
    – Brad Larson Mod
    Commented Aug 24, 2016 at 18:59
  • The important thing is, did someone communicate to the user who posted this that they've done something wrong? In a lot of cases of plagiarism, you assume that the person knew better because they tried to cover their tracks. But in this case, the person might have thought they were providing attribution, and therefore might be willing/able to learn from their mistakes. They do this "more" or "details" business in nearly all of their answers, but the volume of copied work is not nearly as substantial. @Brad, did you send a moderator message to accompany the deletion?
    – Cody Gray - on strike Mod
    Commented Aug 24, 2016 at 19:18
  • 4
    @CodyGray Considering that the user responded to a comment indicating that what they did was wrong by stating that they felt copying any amount of anyone else's work is perfectly acceptable, and that the actual author of any work is irrelevant as long as an answer is correct, I highly doubt that. This person has apparently been brought up thinking that it's simply okay to provide the works of others as if they're your own, so I doubt you're going to change that.
    – Servy
    Commented Aug 24, 2016 at 19:25
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    @CodyGray - In this case, the comment by totymedli states exactly what I would have, so I figured they had received sufficient warning. Yes, we typically do accompany post deletion for plagiarism with an educational moderator message, particularly if there is more than one instance of this. It usually stops the plagiarism. The number of "oh, I didn't know that was against the rules" replies we receive is surprising. I'll add a comment with a link back here, in case they're still confused why this was removed.
    – Brad Larson Mod
    Commented Aug 24, 2016 at 19:48
  • 2
    The use of "more" as link text is not an isolated case, by the way. There are an alarming number of people who hide source links behind a very inconspicuous "more" link tacked onto the end in a place no one will see it. And others who actually use "more" to link to places other than the source, which would be less shady if it wasn't for the fact that the content within the answer was stolen anyhow.
    – BoltClock
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 4:20
  • @BoltClock Complicated all the more by the fact that if the person posting it is actually the original author then that behavior is perfectly fine.
    – Servy
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 13:09

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