While most of the time this sort of thing is dealt with as plagiarism, every so often a situation comes up where the details are less clear.
Recently a user posted an article wherein they added to the discussion the following:
My friend called (NAME REMOVED) told me to post this. All of the writing was done by him.
In discussion on this, it became apparent that this doesn't fall under plagiarism necessarily, as the post was attributed. It also doesn't fall under the auspice of "account sharing" as it wasn't the case of multiple people utilizing the same account.
Even so, it isn't clear if the other user ever intended to join for collaborative purposes, nor if this was a simple misunderstanding of how the system here works. Regardless, we do not have any set policy in place to point to and say "Here is where this breaks the rules, here is the appropriate response."
That being said, I suggest that we update the appropriate guides/rules to state something to the effect of "All posted works must be written by the user that posts the work, unless specifically working in collaboration with another site user. All collaborative works must be indicated as such and appropriate attribution must be given."
As far as failure to abide by this new rule, I suggest simply following the standard escalation for all non-emergency Disciplinary matters. Revocation -> short ban -> long ban -> permanent ban.
Are there any other thoughts on the matter?
This discussion is open to all opstaff+.
EDIT: Part of the discussion also included what to do with the offending piece. I don't believe that a situation exists where a piece "written by another and posted by me" has survived past the standard deletion, so it's not come up until now.
Should such articles be subject to summary deletion? Regardless of vote count?
