Editorial Fun with plagiarism at Gamer's Hell

[Raymondo]

Just out of curiosity don’t you call it a Game Media Site? Just asking

Now who’s not acting professional

 

[AlaShiban]

Details details.... its 2am, cut me some slack
anyways, was nice visting another website online, i must be going though, lot of work to do, enjoy your stay!

 

[Briosafreak]

Details details.... its 2am, cut me some slack
anyways, was nice visting another website online, i must be going though, lot of work to do, enjoy your stay!

A quick warning, if you ever do a mistake with anything from NMA don`t try to cover it up with lawyers, insults and claiming you are big. It doesn`t work. You are the most pathetic guys in gaming sites, trying to move the discussion from the relevant points to side issues, trying to do the victim act while you are the ones that screwd up.

Again you are warned, never pull those tricks with NMA like you`ve tried with RPGCodex.Ever.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

We've posted the interview as is, since no one was particularly sure where the original questions were - we post two articles a day on normal basis, and until now have found no reason to check on contents of our interview questions - but there's a first time for everything I guess.

See, this is why I CC interview questions to at least one other staff member here, so in the event I'm not around to post the interview, they can check it for consistancy. In fact, had your editor, which is what an editor is supposed to do, checked your interviews for things like this, then the offending thing in the first place would have never been tossed up on your site. Your editor would have seen that a question that wasn't from your interview was in the interview, and he could have cut it out right then or at least enquired to the interviewee where the question came from.

It's a several step process, I'm talking about here. When you're taking the draft of that interview and adding the HTML to it for submission, then a novel idea is proof reading it to make sure everything's honkey-dorey.

Apparently mr. Tomas while copying and pasting his responses has accidentally copy+pasted your question as well. It has been removed from our article now. As you might've noticed it was the only identical question in our interview.

Good for you. Thanks. Was that so hard?

As for SIMILAR questions - I'm sorry to disappoint you, if you claim to have sent your interview questions same time as us (one month ago, after official announcement of the game) we simply couldn't have seen the questions your interviewer has written without hacking into his computer. If you suspect that's the case, consider shelling out some money for a firewall. As for identical answers, feel free to refer to mr Bencik himself, I believe you have his e-mail address.

Then again, my interview was also posted a day prior to yours.

Like I've already said we've removed the offending question from our interview, and I offer my personal apology on behalf of that even though it was mr. Bencik that, to tell you the truth like it should be told, fucked up.

Like I pointed out, he may have made the original blunder, if that's true. However, your editor should have checked the interview before posting it, especially considering he took the time to the question. Offering an apology without accepting at least part of the fault here, which is clearly the case, was part of the problem.

Even trying to shift any of the fault to me is rather silly, since those were my words and wording exactly that wound up on your site.

- re-post PRIVATE e-mails (the e-mails were meant for the receiver, not public vieweing the way I understand it - so now who is having problems understanding ethics?)

This is still funny. Emails aren't private, son. Look it up. Even snail mail isn't protected from being printed without authorization from the author as long as the person who recieves it does it.

Oh, making fun of the English skills of my Italian colleague just made you hit a 10/10 on my personal 'arrogant fuck of today' rating. Congratulations dumbass, you're the grammar Nazi of the day.

Italian isn't an excuse for being too damned lazy to spell out a three letter word. Perhaps you guys should hire a grammer nazi to check your content before you post it as well?

No, some of us run professional gaming websites as legitimate businesses and manage to become a part of UGO network. They also manage to make it into the top 7,000 most visited sites on the Internet with a daily average of 100,000 uniques. Now what have you done, dumbass?

I'm sure your penis is quite large, too.

I didn't know we were talking to Infogrames' PR manager... And if I knew that I'd tell you the same thing we told them before ? if you're dumb enough to put 'preview' trailers on public, anonymous FTPs belonging to the company, you can expect someone downloading them and posting on sites. And is it any of YOUR business once again? You leeched it off of our free bandwidth, and now you're accusing us of something? Good job once again, dumbass.

Just because something winds up on a public FTP server doesn't mean it's a good idea for you to post it, does it? The big words, LEGAL GOES HERE should have been enough to give you a clue that it was a mistake by Infogrames that it was on that server, and rather than simply emailing Infogrames and pointing out that mistake, you guys decided to rank up a few more hits for your professional business at the expense of some poor schmuck at Infogrames. Real nice there, kids.

For now I'm not yet ready to go down to your level and frankly I've got some PAID work to do for the site now.

Son, you'd get whiplash just trying to look UP to my level.

However feel free not to remove your idiotic bullshit from here and frontpage, and feel free to keep flaming me, Francesco and Gamer's Hell in general for whatever bullshit reason you might have now. I might check back in a bit and have a laugh. Free entertainment is always good.

Sure thing, would you like me to remove it and replace it with the fact you post anything you get back from a developer without any sort of content checking whatsoever? How your big, professional business site, which gets 100,000 impressions per day has no system in place to make sure something doesn't slip in to their two pieces of content they post a day, even though they seem to have gobs and gobs of PAID staff members that are supposed to do that sort of thing? Isn't that what an editor does? Edit things to make sure they're how they're supposed to be?

 

[EEVIAC]

I don't see how Saint is in the wrong. His initial criticism was that content from his own review (Questionm # Eight) was posted at another site (Gamer's Hell) without due credit. This error has now been admitted and rectified.

Apparently Mr Tomas while copying and pasting his responses has accidentally copy+pasted your question as well. It has been removed from our article now.

It was posted at Gamer's Hell, the interviewer should have checked it and at least figured out for himself that one of the questions was out of place. Think of it another way, if Tomas had inadvertantly included DOOM 3 information that only he was privy to, the interviewer/editor of the piece would still be responsible, (except he would be in a lot more trouble.) Whether you misappropriate from a small company (RPGCodex) or a large one (iD) the principle of theft is essentially the same. Anyways, its now fixed, which is good for everyone.

Saint further criticized GH by speculating that they allow developers to piece together their own press, something which is also been susequently proved by the above quote. This, unfortunately, won't go away so easily.

As for the term "rat-bastard" I think its particularly apt. From Dictionary.com, (Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.) :

2. Lacking in genuineness; spurious; false; adulterate; -- applied to things which resemble those which are genuine, but are really not so.

My underlining.

<edit> SP beat me to it.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

It was posted at Gamer's Hell, the interviewer should have checked it and at least figured out for himself that one of the questions was out of place. Think of it another way, if Tomas had inadvertantly included DOOM 3 information that only he was privy to, the interviewer/editor of the piece would still be responsible, (except he would be in a lot more trouble.) Whether you misappropriate from a small company (RPGCodex) or a large one (iD) the principle of theft is essentially the same. Anyways, its now fixed, which is good for everyone..

I think this falls under the same thing as the Temple of Elemental Evil trailer they posted just because they found it while sniffing around on Infogrames' FTP. It's okay if they do it because they're not the original ones who screwed up.. You know, because they get paid to do what they do!

 

[Raymondo]

because they get paid to do what they

lol yeah right, I don't even think all 3 of their banners cover enough for their website let alone actually getting paid for sitting on their asses all-day.

 

[Dennis S.]

We've posted the interview as is, since no one was particularly sure where the original questions were - we post two articles a day on normal basis, and until now have found no reason to check on contents of our interview questions - but there's a first time for everything I guess.

See, this is why I CC interview questions to at least one other staff member here, so in the event I'm not around to post the interview, they can check it for consistancy. In fact, had your editor, which is what an editor is supposed to do, checked your interviews for things like this, then the offending thing in the first place would have never been tossed up on your site. Your editor would have seen that a question that wasn't from your interview was in the interview, and he could have cut it out right then or at least enquired to the interviewee where the question came from.

It's a several step process, I'm talking about here. When you're taking the draft of that interview and adding the HTML to it for submission, then a novel idea is proof reading it to make sure everything's honkey-dorey.

All of our interviews are proofread for spelling mistakes and so on. Since we have 5 interview writers and 3 people responsible for communications with developers/publishers it's close to impossible to keep original questions, however. Thanks a lot for the inside knowledge on how to run a big gaming news site. It's really appreciated of course, but if it wasn't for Tomas copying+pasting the same content into all three interviews, it wouldn't happen. Professional companies don't do that, hence this is the first time I see something like that in the last three years of working with the site.

Then again, my interview was also posted a day prior to yours.

Yours was posted at 05:27:47 on August 7, 2003. Our interview was posted at 23:59:00 on August 7, 2003, GMT 00:00 (UK time). Less than a day after your interview was posted... We post all articles every evening, around 00:00. I could forward you the original e-mail that came from Tomas, with interview questions attached that dates to August 6th, anyway here is the header.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tomas Bencik" <Thor@mayhem.sk>
To: "GamersHell.com" <editor@gamershell.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 1:06 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Shadow Vault Interview (Gamer's Hell)

Now coming from your logic, we can accuse you of plagiarism as well, since we had the same answers, similar questions and an identical question to yours in our interview.

Like I pointed out, he may have made the original blunder, if that's true. However, your editor should have checked the interview before posting it, especially considering he took the time to the question. Offering an apology without accepting at least part of the fault here, which is clearly the case, was part of the problem.

Posting bullshit on your frontpage instead of E-MAILING US like NORMAL PEOPLE DO was yet another part of the problem.

Sure thing, would you like me to remove it and replace it with the fact you post anything you get back from a developer without any sort of content checking whatsoever? How your big, professional business site, which gets 100,000 impressions per day has no system in place to make sure something doesn't slip in to their two pieces of content they post a day, even though they seem to have gobs and gobs of PAID staff members that are supposed to do that sort of thing? Isn't that what an editor does? Edit things to make sure they're how they're supposed to be?

So when you get the interviews back, you check original questions vs. the questions you have in the document you've received? Every single one to make sure the developer didn't copy+paste some additional questions from some other interview? Well, in that case it'd explain RPGCodex' rank on Alexa... Spend more time checking question after question and writing bullshit news on frontpage and forums instead of delivering new content. Trust me, it'll help you a lot (apparently already does). And at least someone here has the GUTS to admit that a fuckup was made and to offer an apology, even if he was in no way responsible for the fuckup. And no, it wasn't you.

In any case you can enjoy your ego trip, I've skipped replying to a good half of your last post... I've got work to do here, you know.

 

[Raymondo]

Thanks a lot for the inside knowledge on how to run a big gaming news site. It'

If your going to act all professional you could at least call it a Game Media Site

 

[Dennis S.]

because they get paid to do what they

lol yeah right, I don't even think all 3 of their banners cover enough for their website let alone actually getting paid for sitting on their asses all-day.

Uh-oh... Now we're also criticized for having three banners instead of four pop-ups in a row like this site has... Ok, we'll listen to your suggestion of course... Would 4 pop-ups suffice or should we put 4+ to make our site more attractive than this one?

 

[Raymondo]

because they get paid to do what they

lol yeah right, I don't even think all 3 of their banners cover enough for their website let alone actually getting paid for sitting on their asses all-day.

Uh-oh... Now we're also criticized for having three banners instead of four pop-ups in a row like this site has... Ok, we'll listen to your suggestion of course... Would 4 pop-ups suffice or should we put 4+ to make our site more attractive than this one?

I think your seeing things better lay off the dope man that shit can fuck up your brain meaning no more jobs in gaming.

Also why does a game media site have porn on it?

 

[EEVIAC]

So when you get the interviews back, you check original questions vs. the questions you have in the document you've received? Every single one to make sure the developer didn't copy+paste some additional questions from some other interview? Well, in that case it'd explain RPGCodex' rank on Alexa...

What are you getting paid for? You're complaining about the duties of your job. The fact that 100 000 unique hits a day expect you to be right should put a little spring in your step. Wouldn't you rather be right than popular? Wouldn't you rather be both?

 

[Killzig]

Damn you n00bs. MOZILLA FIREBIRD.

 

[Dennis S.]

So when you get the interviews back, you check original questions vs. the questions you have in the document you've received? Every single one to make sure the developer didn't copy+paste some additional questions from some other interview? Well, in that case it'd explain RPGCodex' rank on Alexa...

What are you getting paid for? You're complaining about the duties of your job? The fact that 100 000 unique hits a day expect you to be right should put a little spring in your step. Wouldn't you rather be right than popular? Wouldn't you rather be both?

Like I've already mentioned this is the FIRST (and hopefully last) time that an incident like that has happened. We do our job properly, but it doesn't include checking for fuckups from the side of the interviewee. We would rather spend our time churning out our two new (and ORIGINAL) articles every day, keeping 24/7 news coverage, mirroring latest files for our visitors on our six mirrors and more. It's not a matter of popular or right, it's about setting priorities and keeping the whole machine working. We would rather do all of the above rather than check on whether a developer decided to insert some questions himself.

Furthermore, SOME of the developers actually do that, insert own questions that we didn't ask but which they *want* to answer. PLZ let me know how we can fully control that short of cutting them off (and if you know so much about this business, let me know how we can keep them of our asses if we DO cut off questions that they added and answered themselves). For now you have Tomas' e-mail address, feel free to flame him for copy+pasting the same content into different articles if it's so important for you.

 

[Omegaslast]

I'm a reader of gamershell, and they are VERY useful to me, they allow great download speeds and usually have all the files, they dont skip half the files like fileplanet.

Hey RPGCodex, it's nice to see a website that handles things like adults. Wait.. you didn't handle this like an adult. An adult would have contacted them though email and asked them if they plagiarised this, and if not, how did they obtain it. What you have done, is jumped to conclusions, and handled this like a snobby teenager who just had his girlfriend stolen or whatever. Maybe you could contact Matthew Peterson and ask HIM, I'm sure he knows the answers, since he WROTE the interview and all. Maybe you guys could get your heads out of your asses and learn how to handle things?

Oh and whats this about being anal retentive about "u"? I guess this is your idea of perfect english?
Quote from RPGcodex front page:

We <3 j00 2, David! PLZ SPEND MOER TIME RITING ESCUSES 4 J00R D3SIGNZ 4 US. KTHXBYE!

 

[Spazmo]

I'd like to make it clear at this point that Raymondo2000 in no way speaks for the RPG Codex. Any opinions he expresses are his own and any arguments he enters are his own personal issue.

That said, I think all of us--Gamer's Hell, RPG Codex and Mayhem Entertainment have some things to own up to here. Gamer's Hell, maybe you should get proper editors to look over your features? The identical questions are highly suspect and I'd like to know what spellchecker let a mistake like "u" instead of the proper "you" into your content. I'm not criticising anyone who doesn't speak English as a first language here (despite the fact that our Polish staff member write flawless English), I'm just saying it's not professional.

We at RPG Codex perhaps jumped the gun a bit, but I'm sure you can understand that we're kinda pissed at seeing our content reposted on another site without and credit for us.

But I think we should really be pointing the finger at Mayhem Enterntainment here. They're the ones who are packaging our exclusive content and that of other sites and labelling it as exclusive content for other sites. Assuming everything the GH editors have been saying is true, Mayhem is to blame for this mess.

Oh and whats this about being anal retentive about "u"? I guess this is your idea of perfect english?
Quote from RPGcodex front page:

We <3 j00 2, David! PLZ SPEND MOER TIME RITING ESCUSES 4 J00R D3SIGNZ 4 US. KTHXBYE!

That was a joke because we don't like David Gaider. Right over your head, huh?

 

[Dennis S.]

The identical questions are highly suspect and I'd like to know what spellchecker let a mistake like "u" instead of the proper "you" into your content. I'm not criticising anyone who doesn't speak English as a first language here (despite the fact that our Polish staff member write flawless English), I'm just saying it's not professional..

To be honest this is the first time I've heard of RPGCodex. We REALLY don't have the time to visit every gaming news site on the internet and check every article for 'identical' questions. I doubt you do that either. As for professionalism... And I quote from your website's frontpage

It looks like GamersHell has decided that rather than write interviews on their own, they've decided to cut and paste interviews from other sites and call it theirs.

Perfect English, right? I'd suggest to stop being so anal about 'u's in our articles, or at least check the quality of your news beforehand.

Assuming everything the GH editors have been saying is true, Mayhem is to blame for this mess.

Like I've already said around a million times, you have Tomas' e-mail address, if not I've posted it above. If you STILL don't believe us feel free to interrogate mr. Tomas about this issue.

Also note that while we've corrected the fuckup and offered our apologies, you've still got the same news comment on your frontpage claiming that we stole your article, and your staff members are still arguing about... well, not sure about what exactly.

Really, I am done here, I don't have any points left to prove. If anyone else from RPGCodex' staff still feels like arguing, feel free to write new comments and re-post my, Ala's or Francesco's answers, as I believe we've covered all questions that might arise from this issue in our previous posts here.

 

[Psilon]

Posting bullshit on your frontpage instead of E-MAILING US like NORMAL PEOPLE DO was yet another part of the problem.

Go way back to the start of the thread, there. Saint quoted the email he sent you guys. As for the "WE LUB J00" stuff, note that it shows up only as sarcasm. The official RPGCodex NWN review, which--given the prevailing opinions--could be expected to contain large amounts of profanity and poorly-written invective, is quite representative of the writing style around here.

 

[Dennis S.]

Posting bullshit on your frontpage instead of E-MAILING US like NORMAL PEOPLE DO was yet another part of the problem.

Go way back to the start of the thread, there. Saint quoted the email he sent you guys..

So sending an e-mail, followed by a hateful news/forum post without waiting for resolution of the problem or even a simple REPLY to it (the e-mail) is OK? Riiiiight.

 

[Raymondo]

Posting bullshit on your frontpage instead of E-MAILING US like NORMAL PEOPLE DO was yet another part of the problem.

Go way back to the start of the thread, there. Saint quoted the email he sent you guys..

So sending an e-mail, followed by a hateful news/forum post without waiting for resolution of the problem or even a simple REPLY to it (the e-mail) is OK? Riiiiight.

Well what the fuck more do you want?

What maybe a sorry basket with fruit will that do?

Some Flowers?

 

[Killzig]

Really, I am done here, I don't have any points left to prove.

I thought you were done here? Plz let this thread die.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

o be honest this is the first time I've heard of RPGCodex. We REALLY don't have the time to visit every gaming news site on the internet and check every article for 'identical' questions. I doubt you do that either. As for professionalism... And I quote from your website's frontpage

That would be because I have standards for which news sites are on my notification list.

It looks like GamersHell has decided that rather than write interviews on their own, they've decided to cut and paste interviews from other sites and call it theirs.

Perfect English, right? I'd suggest to stop being so anal about 'u's in our articles, or at least check the quality of your news beforehand.

Actually, that is perfect English. Scary you don't recognise it when you see it.

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

Despite the fact that GamersHell is, apparently, a BIG PROFESSIONAL SITE WITH ORIGINAL CONTENT, I have never been there.

And now I can safely say I never will. Not because of the whole plagarism ...oops I meant someone else's mistake thing; rather because when they complain they do so like whiny lil pussy bitches. Saint, right or wrong, when he complains at least it is funny and a reasonably well thought out argument. But maybe that is because he doesn't work for A BIG PROFESSIONAL SITE WITH PAID EMPLOYEES...what is it company policy that you mention this everytime you post? Sheesh, sorry about the little penis but no one here is to blame.

They sound like low level-mafia guys...y'know I'm not saying I'm gonna bring a lawyer into this, but I could if I wanted because WE ARE A BIG PROFESSIONAL SITE WITH PAID EMPLOYEES.
ok get it man. shut up already.

 

[Jed]

I had never heard of this "Alexa" thing, so I looked it up. I searched for our site, and here is the "stats":

RPG Codex - putting the 'role' back in RPG
Avg.User Review: 1 out of 5 stars

Amusing how some people continually confuse quanity for quality. Also funny how some people think that a hobby-enthusiast is somehow a lower lifeform than a hack. I'm glad no one is P41D! to do this site, that's why its bullshit-to-information ratio is so good.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

I had never heard of this "Alexa" thing, so I looked it up. I searched for our site, and here is the "stats":

RPG Codex - putting the 'role' back in RPG
Avg.User Review: 1 out of 5 stars

I just checked out Alexa, too. Why is it always the lurkers who hold such deep animosity towards our happy family? Passive-aggressive twit.

Amusing how some people continually confuse quanity for quality. Also funny how some people think that a hobby-enthusiast is somehow a lower lifeform than a hack. I'm glad no one is P41D! to do this site, that's why its bullshit-to-information ratio is so good.

Yeah, I was getting a bit of a "Hey, I don't bite the hand that feeds me" vibe, like it was a good thing. Give me somebody who doesn't have a stake beyond their own personal preference any day.