Thread:Harostar/@comment-27247962-20160509051925/@comment-27247962-20160511090416

I've recently seen a lot of theorizing about abraxas, which led to blaming people of plagiarism because of it. (the Chibi incident)

Plagiarism is a vague term and imo can be worked around pretty easily, ofcourse not without people noticing, as set example above.

Therefore my question and hope I can have your thoughts on the matter: "Even if you're not the first person writing about it & even if it was brought to your attention by someone else. Is it still considered plagiarism if you start researching about that topic yourself and make a video/book/blog/... about it after you've done your own research?"

If both persons come to the same conclusion by doing their own research, albeit one much later, doesn't that just means they back each others ideas up?

This is a legitimate and objective question, because I'm thinking the term brings about much more problems because you can bend and stretch it the way you want, when it's useful to you. And that bending and stretching can in some cases be seen as fraud.

Forgery on the other hand is a clear term, but that wasn't used in the incident. To stay with the chibi-floppyamon example: To me that seems because floppyamon can't prove it's stolen, so he decides to make use of the more encompassing term that is 'plagiarism'.

That's just wrong to me, because proof is what matters, if proof is there I completely agree, but if you try to frame someone because the indications are there, that's something that will only bring more problems, that's where we need clear rules. If we start punishing people harshly for things that can't be proven, but only indicated, then the net won't be of much use anymore.

What are your thoughts on this? :) (just interested, no siding or anything, just my point of view on 'plagiarism' with the example that made me come to this question.)