Talk:Ben Alder

Latest comment: 15 years ago by Ras52 in topic Allegation of plagiarism

Allegation of plagiarism edit

In this edit, 91.107.123.233 (talk · contribs) states that the introductory paragraph has been copied from Munro-Madness.com, and it is true that the introductory paragraph is identical to the description there. However, this most certainly does not mean that the paragraph was copied from it. Although there have been various improvements made since I originally wrote it, the paragraph is still quite recognisable as being derived from the stub article that I created in May 2006 (a few days after returning from a trip there). I can state categorically that stub was not copied from Munro-Madness.com — indeed, until today, I don't believe I had heard of the site. As there have been no wholesale rewrites of that paragraph, I can't see how any later editor could have plagiarised it from there.

Equally, it cannot possibly be coincidence that Wikipedia's article and MunroMagic.com's are the same. Therefore, I can only conclude that copying has indeed taken place, but not in the direction alleged by that anonymous IP address. I have therefore removed the allegation from the article (it shouldn't have been made there in the first place). Furthermore, MunroMagic.com is infringing Wikipedia's editors' copyright by reproducing this article's content apparently without conforming to the terms of Wikipedia's licence. This is a serious issue, and one I propose to investigate further to see whether it is an isolated example. — ras52 (talk) 21:55, 3 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Further proof, if any is needed, comes from the fact that the domain munro-magic.com wasn't even registered until 20 Dec 2007, a year and a half after I created initial stub. I also note that the introductions for Ben Nevis, Càrn Mòr Dearg and Ben Macdui have been copied too; although interestingly, the site's author is clearly capable of writing suitable text as Beinn Bheoil does not have an article here but does have one there. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned this is ample evidence that Munro-Magic.com is using Wikipedia content in non-compliance with the GFDL. — ras52 (talk) 22:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)Reply