A girl, in particular. In [url=http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/006385.html] the poster know as A girl asks for help plagiarizing a paper for an english class. Nurlman, apparently being equally bereft of basic integrity or work ethic, happily provided a link to a site which apparently makes cheating its business, literally.
A girl – you disgust me. You haven’t enough respect for your class, your instructor, your education or yourself to do your own work. You are so pathetically unable to form coherent thoughts that you view writing a 5-7 page paper as a severe test of your personal honor. In fact, your honor is so meager that you fail even that trivial a test. You are a loser. So long as you find fraud a more attractive option than developing your mind you will remain a loser. I hope you do cheat. I hope you apply the same dedication and ethic in cheating that you do in pursuing your education. If you do, you will certainly be caught. I do not know if this will be the best thing for you. You may be such a pathetic waste of chromosomes that you learn nothing from teh experience and continue to seek the easy way out of every test. I hope not. I hope you are not so far gone that you cannot be taught one of the most basic principals of intellectual honesty. Either way, I know it will be the best thing for your classmates, none of whom deserve to suffer because your parents failed to teach you basic human values.
And to you, Nurlman, shame on you. A girl at least has a trivially selfish reason for being dishonest. What reason do you have for supporting her fraud? What are you, some kind of term-paper pusher? “C’mon, little girl, first essay’s free. It’s a guaranteed ‘A’. No one will know but us.” Some people make bad choices. You don’t need to make it easier for them.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
This issue really bothers me. I tell my children time and again that I’d rather they bring home an honest “F” than a dishonest “A”. But I know that so many others are bringing home that dishonest “A” and getting away with it that my kids’ B’s and C’s look weak in comparison, and will hurt them when applying for college.
I don’t know what the answer is, but cheating ain’t it.
Nurlman:
I retract everything I said about you in this thread. And in [url=http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/006385.html] that [/rul] thread. I also sincerely apologize for not checking your link before including you in teh line of fire.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
Spiritus, you almost earned yourself a hard thump upside the head. “A Girl” (singular, poster) attempted a sleazy bit of cheating but the OP is “Girls (plural) lack integrity”. Categorizing half of the human race based on the actions of one lazy, opportunistic slimeball seemed very “unSpiritus-like” so reading the whole thread saved you from a spray of (female) Doper napalm.
That said, you’re dead on right about the tacky, despicable practice of cheating.
No sweat, bubba. Punctuating sarcasm with a smiley is like finishing a joke with “Get it?!”
My post was specfically intended to be interpreted exactly as you first read it and to engender outrage from those who didn’t follow the link and get the punchline. Wait, does that make me a troll?
Christ almighty, people! Did anyone bother to go back to that thread to read A girl’s last post?
Last time I checked, this board was supposed to help stamp out ignorance. Well, A girl screwed up in trying to take the easy way out, was chastised, and said she would do things the right way. We ought to give her the benefit of the doubt, which is only appropriate since she is new & hasn’t shown herself to be a troll or otherwise objectionable.
Yes, plagiarism = cheating = wrong. No argument from me.
But Spiritus, where the fuck do you come off slamming her as if she were the worst piece of shit on this board? I can think of several other candidates who would easily qualify long before her. Besides, do you want to claim that you have never done anything wrong in your life, or that you never even thought about doing anything wrong? I seem to recall that in one of the martial arts threads you made reference to your own less-than-angelic youth. I guess of none of what you did involved plagiarism or thoughts thereof, you’re squeaky clean, right?
And lastly, TVeblen said:
Sorry, there’s no fucking excuse for labeling this thread the way Spiritus did. Besides, given that the people who posted here didn’t seem to go back to the original thread to see what was actually going on, Spiritus has painted an offensive portrait of a relatively innocuous poster that would probably go uncorrected.
Cut A girl a little slack, Spiritus, and save your vitriol for someone more deserving!
I realize that this thread was started before her final statement. What annoyed me first, as I started to read this thread, was how over-the-top Spiritus went. What bugged me even more was how people continued to post in response to Spiritus’ comments, merrily flaming away, without apparently going back to read the original thread - after 3:28 pm. If you go back and read it, you’ll find that people chastised her in that thread, and her responses were to people posting in that thread, not this one. Her responses there did not suggest to me that she was even aware of what was going on here, although she is welcome to correct me if I’m wrong.
I lurked long enough before I started posting to learn all about trolls, and I’ve seen plenty of that sort of activity since I started posting. Sure, the general atmosphere makes people jumpy. But to immediately jump on the back of newbie and shred her with the level of ferocity that Spiritus employed is a shameful response; all it does is reinforce the idea among newcomers that the SDMB does not welcome new posters, and if they dare to do so, they’d better have a Ph.D. before they post. I didn’t think that was the point of this board.
I have no problem. You just seemed all pissed off, and seemed to me that it was because Spiritus seemed to make some generalizations.
It seemed-to me-as though you had a big chip on your shoulder about A girl, and about girls in general, and that you didn’t read the entire thread before responding to the op. You seemed to get on people for not checking the OP but it seems like you didn’t read the whole post before you responed.
Of course, this is just my opinion, I could be wrong, I am not picking a fight or a flame-war, or anything.
Just an observation. Nothing personal, and no nasty intent.
“Winners never quit and quitters never win, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.”
Not saying your point doesn’t have some merit, Fillet, but seems to be you’re going a bit overboard yourself.
The whole point w/ SD is fighting ignorance. A Girl pulled a colossal whoopsie in mistaking this place for a quickie educational shortcut; she found out differently and backtracked promptly.
But that doesn’t mean that SDMB collectively tromps on newbies or sniffily dismisses anyone without a PhD. Can’t say the OP was phrased well (which is atypical of Spiritus) but I embrace his underlying point wholeheartedly.
Fighting ignorance most definitely includes learning from others; it emphatically does not encompass cheating and plagarism.
Okay. A Girl learned her lesson. But the central issue, IMO, of this thread is the deep wrongness of her initial attempt, nothing more. When something works so completely counter to the purpose of the site, then a strong reaction isn’t suprising.
Chill. It’s over and done. You do A Girl no favor by dredging up a mistake she regrets more than anyone. Not capping on you, Fillet, just hoping that roiled waters will settle.
OK, Lexicon, fair enough. I am plenty annoyed at Spiritus, but mostly for the tone of his condemnation of A girl, not just for the generalization in the title of this thread. I’m not certain why my saying something about it should mean that I have a chip on my shoulder, but that’s neither here nor there at this point.
It just seems to me that lately there is less interest in fighting ignorance on this board than there is in immediately pissing all over somebody who might just be here because they want to learn something (as well as have fun). Gentle sarcasm is fine (unless you’re in the Pit), and telling somebody that certain things (racist attitudes, planning of illegal activities, slanderous comments :D) are not acceptable is fine. But maybe, just maybe, it would be nice to give people the benefit of the doubt and the opportunity to learn what’s appropriate - at least before making them the subject of a Pit thread, eh?
I am considerably calmer than when I first posted.
I understand the point that Spiritus, broadly, was trying to make, and I don’t disagree on the wrongness of plagiarism.
I am surprised and a little disappointed, though, that you, Wally M7, and Lexicon have responded to my post by saying, in essence, “Well, you have a point, to a point, but Spiritus doen’t seem to have been himself when he posted, so let’s just the whole matter go away.” That’s not exactly fair to A girl, is it, given the specific insults sent in her direction? I can’t shake the feeling that if Spiritus had slammed someone you all knew better, or that if I (as her defender) were someone you knew better, there would be an apology to A girl in this thread by now.
That about sums up what I think on this issue, and I’ll not post further here in this thread unless an additional post warrants it.