Cross Hills1

Plagiarism

As you have accused me of plagiarism using my real name in association with a place where I have lived, I am seeking an explanation and, unless you can demonstrate an alleged plagiarism for consideration, a formal apology. I am happy to use this page for communication purposes as I do not want any contact with you via e-mail or post at this stage. It seems I should explain the way in which I conducted my work on From Lads to Lord's (FLTL) in case something I produced has been the cause of a genuine misunderstanding. Reluctantly, I will do that here.

Plagiarism is difficult to define but essentially it is the duplication of another writer's words, without citation or credit, and passing them off as your own. If you think there is plagiarism in anything I have written, the onus is on you to prove it. Therefore, I am asking you to provide a sample of my work that has allegedly been plagiarised. All you need to do is copy and paste a relevant extract on here, saying where you got it from (e.g., FLTL 1777) and then citing the work from which it has allegedly been copied without citation or credit. Can you please attend to that as soon as possible?

As the basis of FLTL is a matchlist, I should explain that this was derived from numerous sources as the referencing/citation throughout the work makes clear: e.g., the Dartford v All-England match in September 1759 is sourced to both Haygarth and Buckley. To create my own matchlist I used Haygarth, Ashley-Cooper, Waghorn/Wilson, Buckley and McCann in the main (Maun had not published then) with occasional use of other writers like Nyren, Bowen, Underdown, Mote, Birley. I used a handbook produced by ACS members as a checklist but it did not contain anything that I had not already found in the main sources; it did confirm many of the dating errors by Waghorn which I had already sourced in Mr Wilson's book. As there was doubt about some of the dates in Scores and Biographies, I checked CricketArchive (CA) for verification of the matches in question and I believe I always deferred to CA re the dates of those. I acknowledged the ACS re one match played in 1778 (i.e., following the recent discovery of a full scorecard) but everything else came from the main sources subject to correction of dating errors and the like as described. As I was in contact with Mr Warsop at the time, I collaborated with him and I believe we were in agreement about matches played up to 1787, when FLTL ends, though he gave me some post-1787 fixtures he had found in Britcher's works to which I did not have access. My matchlist was therefore based on other people's work but they were all given due credit and what I tried to achieve was a consolidation of the matches they mentioned in their works. This is what Mr Maun has done in his volumes by citing all references he has found, whereas Buckley left out the matches that were in earlier sources unless he had some new information about them. I used my own formatting and layout styles so the presentation was different to anyone else's; and had to be as it was internet-based.

Using Rowland Bowen as an example, you will find that I quoted him directly in one place (see 1760), re the difference between bowling and throwing. I gave him due credit for his original words, as you can see. I contend that this is not plagiarism. It is referencing or citation, whichever word you prefer, which is in this context a direction to another source that is being used to provide the necessary information. Referencing/citation is fine as it gives credit to the original writer. It is the same thing we do on WP with inline citations: i.e., we cite a reliable secondary source per WP:CITE. If I had used Bowen's text and reworded it, that would be paraphrasing, which again is in order as I am giving him credit but only trying to clarify the meaning of his words. In the extract, I have placed my own italics in one place for emphasis so I suppose that could be termed paraphrasing.

If you would like any further explanation of my methods in writing that work, please ask me politely to state them. If you have no questions, then I await sight of sample passages or a formal apology which states your real name, which I already know, not a pseudonym. If there has been a genuine misunderstanding, then please explain. Jack | ^{talk page} 15:41, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I should add that if you believe anything on WP is plagiarism or violation of copyright, then feel free to raise it via the WP:COPYVIO process. This does function. I was involved in an action myself re History of cricket in Bangladesh after we noted the blatant copy and paste of a large section from another website. Jack | ^{talk page} 20:21, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Plagiarism is not a legal but moral concept. Students are bound by it, perhaps uniquely, in the submission of essays. In my time at Keele and Stafford, nearly fifty students were severely sanctioned in the arts side of these universities. Outside of this it can only be acted upon in cases of theft and is rarely proved. Your initial research, in fact a re-arrangement of previous work using only secondary sources, was in my view and that of some other people, an effort to forward what myself and certainly PWT saw as wayward theories about early cricket by someone who lacked the knowledge and understanding of the subject because clearly you had limited secondary sources. You also lacked historical analysis and were wrongfooted by a lack of knowledge of the socio-economic background. I recall you rubbished primary research. You responded to editing and criticism with aggressive emails to myself, PWT and I dunno, maybe others. You then peddled your theories on this cite and in your web book. These theories moderated as you had greater access to sources which were put on the web or got hold of books. When Maun got access to the BL web library of newspapers, he industriously transcribed all the things he found using the search parameter 'cricket' I guess. Certainly I quckly found all his findings for the earlier years as I had the same access but not the industry. Keith had found everything but a couple of games by his research of the papers themselves in the days before google etc. Mr Maun has produced a valuable compilation in his books which you have transcribed into list format. Few could deny you have considerable knowledge of this area. I would argue you lack an understanding of context and do not recognise the division of matches into important etc. Neither do I accept Phil Bailey's and Griffiths ideas on CA about early cricket. For what it's worth I see all matches pre 1800 as important in one way or another. Some were more important regionally, almost none had any national importance. Anyhow that's neither here nor there. Plagiarism is a moral concept and your work, certainly that by you not on WP, wa in some respects morally compromised by it's assumptions and acquisitions of other writers work and more importantly, ideas. As I have not seen the recent draft, that may not be. Citing and referencing (the wp system is not the one universities use or recognise) does not abgorate moral culpability. Using multiple editors is called self plagiarism and you appear to have issues with that big time if your more colourful admissions are true. When I sat on the ACS committee, the then chairman was among your most trenchant critics. During his watch two editors resigned and Mr Griffiths threw in his role on the committee. I would also add that my role in the ACS came about by invitation. I neither watch nor have much interest in cricket being a Rugby fan and committee man, and very very long term baseball fan going back to my time at UBC.(Canada) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.39.74.64 (talk) 15:38, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Right, well, at least you do have some reasons, whether they be right or wrong, for your view. It would seem we should agree to disagree especially as you are prolonging something that happened several years ago and had only minor impact anyway. For your information, I apologised to Mr Hignell about four or five years ago for my part in the argument about the 1772 issue and he regretted that the ACS had allowed the matter to become so protracted. We made our peace and everyone has long since moved on, except you.

Okay, if it helps, I apologise again for any e-mails which expressed my annoyance, which may or may not have been justified at the time, if they have needlessly upset anyone including Mr Wynne-Thomas and yourself.

I will forget about "plagiarism" but I will say here and now that the stupid lies and made-up stories, the playground taunts and the harrassment of people using this site end now. Otherwise I will start talking about harrassment, as other CRIC members are already doing. If you want to use the site, get another userid and use the site constructively without harrassing or being aggressive to people you don't happen to agree with. Show that you can be trusted to act in a positive way as a good editor should and people might start accepting you. Jack | ^{talk page} 20:02, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Please refrain from threats. I know rather a lot about the law(LLb GDL), my wife, rather more as she is a Trade Union solicitor. I wonder how all your nom de plumes might look? Jim Hardie, Dear old Albert, Jamesj etc. Just get on with your editing and I'll be a good boy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.39.74.64 (talk) 14:31, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

And your own nom de plumes? Well over a hundred of them I'm assured; how might they look? And I won't say anything about my wife as she doesn't exist. Or my imaginary career. Forget it, I'm not threatening you. I can't be bothered.

Anyway, I had a couple of questions for you on your IP talk page which you must have seen. Do you have any thoughts or info about those? Jack | ^{talk page} 21:58, 11 February 2015 (UTC)