Disciplinary - Ralliston

Disciplinary - Ralliston

SoullessSingularity 09 Mar 2021 16:11

Ralliston had written an article on the polish branch, whose screenshots are available to staff upon inquiry(he has since deleted the article). It was highly aesthetically similar to this article.

The similarities include:

• The pictures are both of brains.
• The description is empty.
• The containment procedures describe an anomaly affecting the brain.
• The containment procedures both heavily use whitespace increasingly commonly throughout.
• They both change the header of the site to "SECURE, CONTAIN,"

A few differences:

• Ralliston's article uses a different code to achieve the same whitespace effect.
• The actual content and context are wildly different. Ralliston's article describes non-anomalous treatment of Alzheimer's. SCP-4830 describes an out-of-control anomaly infecting the collection of all human thought.

Some further information:

• Ralliston has upvoted the article that his piece is similar to, but claims this is due to a habit when he was new of upvoting any article he came across without reading. He claims to have been unaware of this piece.
• The original article Ralliston wrote had a different image and included a description, which were subsequently edited to the final product reported to be heavily derivative to the point of plagiarism. (In context: The different image didn't have a suitable license and the deletion of the description was for 'the article to have more punch'. During this time, a 'loading document' header was added. This was done purely in response to feedback by polish branch members.)
• Ralliston was informed regarding the similarities prior to posting while his article had a description, and deleted the description after receiving feedback post-posting.
• EDIT: Some more information: Ralliston translated the article to polish after being informed regarding the similarities, and apparently posted to the polish branch as a coldpost. (EDIT: EDIT: Ralliston claims that after being informed of the similarities he changed aspects of the article to be less similar to the original. During this time, he felt it wouldn't survive on EN so he posted it on the polish branch as the work has significant meaning to him.)

After reaching out to Ralliston, here is his response:

Click to show

so before I say my part of the entire creative process, I'll answer these:

1. the photo was initially different. I changed it after I couldn't find its license nor source, and there's a mod post on the Polish Wiki to prove that (well, was, I self-deleted the article yesterday out of panic, but the moderator can confirm this) the initial photo was removed.

2. the article originally had a description, which I later removed as an attempt for it to have more of an emotional punch and say that this person has died (I can provide screenshots of me taking about the removal of description on the Discord server of the Polish Branch if needed)

3. The actual content of the article is also entirely different. From what I can see from declasses of the article I supposedly plagiarised (since, well, it is quite hard to understand on itself) it is a memetic diseasse that consumes the brains of its hosts and other sorts of media that eventually spreads in all of humanity. My article was a metaphor for Alzheimer's progression. I can provide both the original text and a rough translation of it by myself (which, if needed, I can get confirmation about its truthfulness from administrators of the Polish Branch), which both clearly state that it is non-anomalous, and is just the Foundation "panicking", thinking that Alzheimer's is anomalous and the entire article is a metaphor for a Foundation researcher attempting to find help, which I also discussed in the comment section (which, again, it deleted, but is a comment I am sure at least 3 people saw). To make it more clear this is not an anomaly, I also added it an in-universe explanation later on as its rating has fallen below 0 as users complained it didn't make sense in-universe, so I added in a bit explaining it's only an in-universe draft of an actual article left in the slot

I would also like to point out there are at least 3 other articles that use the "whiteboxes / gradually dissapearing text / lack of header, etc as a metaphor for memory loss" gimmick

so, pretty much the entire actual content of my article was entirely different from 4830

so, whilst I understand and can see the similarities between both of the articles, there are so many little things that just would not make sense for me to do if this article was, in fact, plagiarised.

1. first and foremost — why would I link the article directly near the author of the other? if it was, in fact, plagiarised, ther would realistically be way the author of the other article would ever find my article since not only is it on another branch, it is also a niche article on that branch. me just showing them this article if it was in fact plagiarised would make no sense whatsoever.

2. why would I plagiarise? there is no realistical reason nor a motif behind such an action. I mean, hell, I literally have ~15 drafts active at any given time, so I do not struggle with coming up with ideas for articles, so I straight up do not understand the reason I would supposedly do it. one could say — for upvotes. If I wanted upvotes, wouldn't I post it on EN, or would I post it on an extremely niche branch on which there's no chance to gain actual upvotes.

3. DrChandra's appeal (who I know as a plagiarist) was rejected literally a month prior to me posting PL-252. If I indeed plagiarised it, then why would a literal "hey don't plagiarise" thread on 05 (I check 05 regularly — it's a habit I picked up as junior staff and a habit I still do) would remind me not to do it?

4. the actual code for changing the header (which yes, I admit are similiar) is vastly different from 4380's. Why would I use different code when I straight up cannot use css if it was plagiarised? (especially because I posted PL-252 on my phone, some of the older history edits still have the " that phones create.

5. one might then say despite saying I wasn't aware of the actual article, I indeed was, as I had it upvoted, which scpper backs up — I was not. I have a habit of (it's something that I did a long time ago that (1/2, the message got a little long, apologies)

upvoting every link I come across I picked up when I was new to the community — I thought upvoting articles would make people happy, and I pretty much created myself a habit. I mean, hell, I have literally 2000 votes recorder by scpper. 2000. by that metric, I'd have to read 6 articles daily for it to make sense, and I do not — I even talked about that habit a few times in scpd

6. one could say then — "why did you post it to the polish branch and not EN, in which you have all of your articles? surely so the author wouldn't see it!". The same reason I am a part of scpcommune — to post writing that is personal to me and would not survive on EN. Yes, I do think that if I posted PL-252 on EN, it would not survive, but it was something I created after listening to The Caretaker — Everywhere At The End Of Time and was created out of emotions I felt during my listen to it, and they were emotions that mattered to me, so I wrote them and wanted published, so I published it on PL

7. "if you wanted to post it on PL and not EN, why was the submotto in the header the english one?" the answer is simple — I have almost never interacted with the polish branch before. I had genuinely no idea the submotto was different until I believe a couple of weeks after, nor did I read a single PL-exclusive article prior, meaning I had no contact or familiarity with it whatsoever, which I do also talk about on the Discord for which I can provide screenshots for

8. I would also like to reitterate the point from before — there are at least 3 other articles using the gimmick of dissapearing text as a metaphor for memory loss, with one of them literally also describing brains, whose photo I attached in the article of mine and was called out as a similarity — why did I include a photo? because literally all my articles have photos and I do not like them without them. the idea of this gimmick is not original to 4830

9. If I indeed plagiarised it, then why would I change the description to be more similiar? I have actual evidence as to why I changed it which I talked about in the discord server of the polish branch. Why would I also use almsot identical header? my change came of the intention to make it imitate someone loosing their words halfway through a sentence. If I trully plagiarised it, then wouldn't I want for as many changable elements to be as different as I possibly can change?

10. I mean, hell, looking at 4830's code right now it accomplishes the effect off dissapearing text vastly differnetly — it doesn't use whiteboxes (which I used in PL-252), but rather as a way to accomplish it, which are extremely different.

I believe that is all I had to say

oh, one more thing — someone might ask "oh, why did you delete PL-252 yesterday then? surely to hide evidence!" — the answer is simple — I panicked. I will not lie that this entire situation is extremely stressful to me, with such big charges against me and literally 5 people in scpd jumping in, not letting me tell my arguments, and saying that I am 100% guilty in their eyes. I was also talking to someone with authority over me, who, when I tried to say more, called a stop to the discussion, and when I tried to continue the discussion in PMs simply said "I am not interested in continuoing this line of discussion". I was angry at the fact I could not explain myself further, angry at the fact I was treated ironically by the other person, angry at the fact I was already said to be guilty by people who didn't even read the entire conversation, angry at the fact that I could not end my part of the story, and, most importantly, utterly terrified people won't listen to me. the wiki means a lot to me, so the prospect of loosing all of it over something I simply did not do went to my head and stressed the hell out of me. I don't handle stress well, so I panicked and removed it. I was a boiling soup of all sorts of emotions, not knowing what more I can do to help my cause, so I panicked. admittedly, it was a stupid move, but the article can still be seen on scpper if needed. I am much better now though, and can definitely talk and think clealy

sorry for rambling. I believe that is all now, for real.

again, if any other questions show up during the process of disc talking about it, please let me know — i'll answer them all gladly. i can even explain my entire writing process of it if needed

thank you for reaching out to me and allowing me to tell my part of the story. I appreciate it a lot.

EDIT: The head admin of the polish branch reached out to me regarding this, and I'll post it here:

+ show block

Hello.
As the head administrator of the Polish Branch of the SCP Foundation I wanted to express my deep concern about the recent situation regarding the accusation of plagiarism against the user Ralliston.
I have decided to speak on the matter as the incident has affected our site by removing a well-received work from it. Ralliston is an active member of EN, but recently joined the Polish site, where we feel a duty of care to our members, especially in this situation, which – after reviewing the accusatory material, the user's own testimony, dialoguing with him, and observing his behavior towards the incident – erroneously constitutes misconduct and wrongly accuses Ralliston of plagiarism.
First of all, the basis: if something is similar, it is not immediately plagiarism. Both works have a different plot, while the end result, despite the apparent similarities, is in my opinion unintentional and carries out one of the ideas of the site, where a user is encouraged to not hesitate when they have a different way to implement an idea. Similar formatting, completely different plot and message – this, in my opinion, completely dismisses any charges of plagiarism.
Another thing: if we consider very similar works as plagiarism, then according to this line of thought I can say that the whole SCP Foundation is a plagiarism of SCP-173, or each report is a plagiarism of another: they look the same (number, object class, containment procedures, description), however plot-wise they differ. There's a reason we don't want that, right?
Regarding one of the complaints about the page header being "SECURE, CONTAIN," where on the Polish site it is ''Polska filia SCP'', this really is a strange complaint given Ralliston's explanation. Our authors often use untranslated CSS styles, especially BHL, where individual header elements appear in English, and no one has any complaints about that. Similarly, Ralliston, accustomed to writing on your site, used a familiar format.
As for the history of the work on our site, it was initially slated for deletion because it was largely unintelligible and offered no room for speculation, containing much more text at the time. The form taken somewhat referred to Alzheimer's, which made a logical whole, especially given the lack of description: the researcher forgot to write it, or forgot entirely what he was doing. We were very surprised by the sudden removal of the work, after which, inquiring of Ralliston about the reason, he presented us with a situation concerning the accusation of plagiarism against him.
A final comment, regarding the user himself. From my observations, Ralliston is an exemplary user, which has reflected in his participation in the staff, so I doubt that a mr. Hyde with a thirst for plagiarism has awakened in him. Since the creation of the disciplinary record in his case, I have noticed disturbing changes in his behavior, indicating that he is experiencing deep stress from the accusation, as well as Ralliston trying his hardest to prove his innocence. We are a relatively small SCP branch and all such situations are very noticeable in our community.
In my personal opinion this case is either a misunderstanding or a deliberate attempt at slander. However, this is a personal thought and I do not want it to be taken into consideration.
On my part, that's it. I would like this appeal to be taken more as an attempt to minimally influence the consideration of both sides' positions in order to avoid a wrongful conviction. You may take it into consideration or not, as it is of course up to you what you do with Ralliston. I have decided to write this only for the reason that a well-regarded work has disappeared from our site because of the plagiarism accusation, as I mentioned in the introduction.

Best regards, fruitful work and lots of upvotes.

Dr_Blackpeace

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Living the dream, or dreaming the life?

Last edited on 14 Mar 2021 05:49 by SoullessSingularity Show more

Re: Disciplinary - Ralliston

ManyMeats 11 Mar 2021 16:19

As I am not historically a poster on these matters, for the benefit of my compatriots I am stating that I am a member of the Disc Team so my comments are in that capacity and not peanut gallery.

Having reviewed the above I find the communication attempting explanation/defense to be both poorly focused and poorly considered. Having said that, the facts still matter here a good deal more than any eloquence in asserting or refuting them. I want to pick out a couple things that Ralliston said in their defense that I feel merit me stating a public position:

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2. why would I plagiarise?

This is the point Ralliston makes that upsets me most. Why does anyone plagiarize? There's no defensible explanation for it yet it keeps happening not only here but the world over and in places with far greater stakes than we could ever raise. People risk livelihood and career in order to plagiarize yet it continues to happen. Laziness, arrogance, dishonesty/lack of integrity, incalculable density…there are many reasons a person might do this and none of them make any more or less sense than the other.

3. DrChandra's appeal was rejected literally a month prior to me posting PL-252. If I indeed plagiarised it, then why would a literal "hey don't plagiarise" thread on 05 remind me not to do it?

And despite O5 being a thing everyone else who has ever plagiarized on the site can read, people continue to plagiarize here and the world over.

5. one might then say despite saying I wasn't aware of the actual article, I indeed was, as I had it upvoted, which scpper backs up — I was not. I have a habit of upvoting every link I come across I picked up when I was new to the community — I thought upvoting articles would make people happy, and I pretty much created myself a habit.

I looked into this and this actually appears to be true. I had to go 28 pages before finding a single down-vote on your sccper. You really did just "upvote everything".

8. I would also like to reitterate the point from before — there are at least 3 other articles using the gimmick of dissapearing text as a metaphor for memory loss, with one of them literally also describing brains

The use or reuse of a "gimmick" is fine and is not plagiarism, especially one so broad as "memory loss with missing text". The loss of identity is a core and well known place for horror to take a writer and it can evoke a lot of existential power. Writing an article about memory loss isn't plagiarism. The question, then, becomes if you (or any person) was explicitly derivative of another person's execution on this concept. If you were to set these two articles side by side, one on each monitor, I think it is plainly obvious to any reasonable person that the article in question was meant to mimic the EN original.

Ultimately in examining the facts here and taking out the lengthy and poorly focused defenses we have:
-Code which accomplishes a clear imitation of an EN work's presentation, with a different execution.
-Substantially different narrative elements in each piece which do not appear to share all that much conceptual overlap.
-A properly cited image
-High degree of visual similarity

While I am not convinced that this is 100% good faith in its imitation, I do not see evidence that this is plagiarism as we consider it. I advocate no official action be taken for plagiarism.

ADDED 3/14
Having said the above, I am deeply bothered by the duplicity, lack of responsibility, and considerable opaqueness demonstrated by Ralliston throughout the entirety of this investigation. Their story doesn't add up, their defense is impersonal and dodgy, and I feel very strongly that something inappropriate happened here even though this doesn't rise to the level of plagiarism.

I would state support for a 'final warning' or extended probation type situation for this user.

Last edited on 14 Mar 2021 18:41 by ManyMeats Show more

Re: Disciplinary - Ralliston

DrBleep 14 Mar 2021 18:48

I'd like to add to what Meats is saying by stating that I have had to have this explained to me no less than three times because the narratives/information has been incredibly confusing, and intent was muddy and super unclear. That said, I'm in agreement that I don't think actual plagiarism occurred here, or at least not on the level that we have dealt with in the past/that can't be attributable to similarity in ideas. I agree that there was some bad faith shenanigans going on, and that Rallison's personal narrative is dodgy at best.

I'd advocate for a firm final warning here, something that gets the message across of "whatever you did here, it was really fucking shady, don't do it again."

Re: Disciplinary - Ralliston

Tuomey Tombstone 19 Mar 2021 18:35

Agreed with this.

Re: Disciplinary - Ralliston

TheMightyMcB 14 Mar 2021 19:56

I think meats has said what I've been trying to say better than I ever could have. Supporting a very firm warning.

Re: Disciplinary - Ralliston

MalyceGraves 14 Mar 2021 22:38

This has been an incredibly complex situation and one where it isn't entirely clear one way or the other what actually transpired. While the similarities between both articles are manifestly apparent, the content is such that it isn't clear if it was derivative or independently achieved. It is also not clear how aware Ralliston was of the other article, despite having voted on said article.

Motive is unclear, intent is unclear, and as such there is no easy answer for any of this. In our struggle to do the right thing, we have extended deliberation on this for far longer than one would expect, which I am certain has been stressful on everyone involved. As it stands, the Disciplinary Committee has more or less deadlocked on this issue, so in an effort to bring closure I am recommending that we do nothing.

The unfortunate reality of this is that it has been discussed so extensively that it will be impossible to view any future possible infractions without the lens of this event, and that is the extent of the punishment I feel we can mete out in this instance. The entire situation is suspect, but there is no clear thing to point at and say "This, this is where this person was acting in bad faith." Continuing to deliberate will solve little and only increase the anxiety faced by all members involved.

Re: Disciplinary - Ralliston

MalyceGraves 20 Mar 2021 02:09

Noting that this issue has been closed and I have sent the following PM:

Ralliston,

I am writing to you to inform you of the Disciplinary Committee's decision involving the issue documented here: http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14025181/disciplinary-ralliston

After much deliberation and discussion amongst ourselves and after seeking clarification from you and other sources, it is our decision that there is no way to prove one way or another if plagiarism did, in fact, occur. However, it is also impossible to simply ignore the suspicion that the original incident generated as well as that engendered in the subsequent investigation. It became clear during said investigation that you hadn't been entirely open and honest with us throughout, and it was this possible deception that created so much subsequent internal discussion.

In light of that, the decision has been made to issue you this formal warning. Any future incidents will be viewed through the lens of this incident and will thus be considered in any disciplinary action.

Thank you,

MalyceGraves
SCP Wiki Disciplinary Committee