Board Thread:Administrative/@comment-1713281-20140515085613/@comment-61371-20140516010233

I'm going to keep this short, for those who have heard me rant about plagiarism (though, if anyone wants to hear the rant, feel free to request it).

I would say we completely remove plagiarized material, especially if it's word-for-word plagiarism and not reworded plagiarism. Really, the fact that I've been the only one siding with this drastic step is why we never removed the (mostly) plagiarized material from...I think it's Dracula's page (...I THINK Dracula. Whoever's page it is matches the Unofficial Appendix's (or maybe Wikipedia?) entry up to a certain point, where we get some original writing tacked on. It's been so long. Whoever's page it is has me posting something about it on the talk page).

As for the old stuff: remove it. We've got enough contributors now that I think we'll see it refilled fairly quickly with original takes on the material (maybe not as well-written, but the heart and good intentions will be there if the writing skills aren't).

Basically, I vote for purging anything we know has been lifted from another source. If we can't prove it, though, leave it. At this point, odds are we've had stuff stolen from us and posted elsewhere and we shouldn't change because MAYBE we stole it (and there are ways to prove it, especially if it's another Wiki. Edit histories are a godsend in those cases).

But, again, I'm fairly hardcore anti-plagiarism when the plagiarism is blatant. Can't stand the idea of lifting something from another writer. It's a dirty, filthy thing. And very bad.