Plagiarism

Alright, so. Espen has brought to my attention that several CCs that were approved were actually works that have been plagiarized. This is in no way okay. Of course, that's not really very good on our part, but I'm making this post so everyone is aware now.

CCs cannot be plagiarized. In anyway. This means copying exact work, changing a few words here an there, or using someone else's ideas. Use your own knowledge and creativity to come up with your characters.

We don't want to see what other people can write, we want to see what you're able to do! If you have to do some research, great! Go ahead and do that! But DO NOT copy and paste that work into your character's history. 

As of now, there is no punishment for this, but I will be PMing David and seeing what would happen.

CCs are hopefully going to be examined more closely for this, and it will not be tolerated if you take someone else's work. The CC will not be approved.

Espen, thank you for pointing this out.

It seems that, predictably, most of the people that did this are no longer active. Kind of hard to get really attached to being a character if you don't bother to write about them yourself. But it is something to keep in mind, as the old 3rd Doctor's profile was entirely clipped from another RP site, and Donna Noble's was taken from the wiki. It was just something I got curious about when I saw the old Third's, so I copy-pasted the first line of a random paragraph in the history and it led me straight to the other RP site. It did the same on his previous application for 11, which was turned down since Smithy was already taken, except it was a different site.

Plagiarism punishments and discussion as been posted in the template subsection

i think plagiarism is the wrong word for this i mean a lot of roleplay sites allow crossovers and like the person above said some people copy paste into canon forms to save time so i would think you'd need to differentiate that in the rules somewhere! like no crossovers allowed? a character that is too heavily inspired by something else? i think defining exactly what you expect that would save some trouble !

No, this is definitely plagiarism.

Plagiarism is the stealing of someone else's work. If someone else wrote it, you did not. Therefore, you cannot use it. If you have express permission, that's different, but you still need to give credit, and it can't be your whole CC. Like if you did a bit of research and liked how something was worded and were given permission to credit it. That is the only way using someone else's words is acceptable.

Besides, even that would be looked down upon. We want to see what you can write, not what someone else can. If you copy and paste anything from anyone else, that is plagiarism. And is not allowed. Ever. How would you like it if I stole your words and got praised for them? It would sting, yeah?

Also - We don't allow crossovers anyway, and it is stated in the PM new members are sent.

-Nat of the Administrative Staff-

okay yeah no i was just saying cause this is a dr who roleplay forum and no one here owns dr who we're all using intellectual property thats not ours to start with which would be the broad def of plagiarism but we're operating under like the open coms understanding that we're here out of entertainment and not for profit otherwise we would need permission like not to get all legalzy its just easier to understand when you say exactly what you meant! thank you for elaborating!

oh! i must have not got to the message in time! its no longer in my inbox

By the way, its doctor who. And I totally agree, plagerism isn't okay.

This isn't a matter of legality. It's a matter of originality and honesty. The application for characters and so on exists so that you can prove your ability and knowledge is sufficient to play the character properly if it's a canon, or that you've fleshed out the character to be at least a little bit unique and characterized if they're original. And overall, it's meant to prove that you can write well enough to provide something to the site. While it IS used to keep a record of your character as well, that is not the primary function.

So the taboo against plagiarism doesn't stem from any legal standpoint, it comes from the fact that the application is meant to be a gauge of your writing ability and dedication to the character. If you copy your entire history from someone else's profile or from a wiki site, ESPECIALLY if you don't give credit, you're showing that you don't have very much respect for the character or dedication to the role, so why on earth or beyond should you be accepted to play a major character?

Thank you Espen. That's exactly what we were trying to get across with this

i wasnt saying plagiarisms wasnt bad i was just asking for clarification cause the terms is broad and people might not understand what you meant exactly! thats all! thank you!