Disciplinary - Metaphysician

Disciplinary - Metaphysician

Dexanote 05 Aug 2017 01:09

Thread created after further discussion regarding my post on 03 August 2017 found here.

For notekeeping purposes, this is as close to the text of the original PM I sent Metaphysician. Small edits (spacing) may have been made due to having been saved on a notepad doc on my computer in between formatting for Wikidot PM and here.

+ Show initial PM

Good evening Metaphysician,

We’ve recently found that dialogue and text appearing in SCP-2075 The Way of All Flesh, 2406 The Collossus, 2095 The Siege of Gyaros, 2510 Our Broken Salvation and others are more or less directly lifted from the works of 3rd century writer Zosimos of Panoplis, without any clear attribution that is easily accessible and readable on the page or its discussion. This is plagiarism, and while it is a 16-1700 year old work, the fragments you have used in the article still is not your original work and must be attributed to the original author.

I’m going to ask you to clearly attribute to the original author and source as we already do for other borrowed text on the wiki. While you alluded to some inspiration in “A New GoI?” and in 2095’s discussion, neither statements are clear enough to count as attribution and must be added upon. This means, at minimum, to post a clear attribution post in the discussion of each relevant article with clear links to wherever it was you took the text from, as well as whatever additional context you feel is necessary. I recommend you do this as soon as humanly possible, simply so it is done and over with and quickly dealt with.

I will be sending you a PM via Jarvis on the IRC, to Metaphysician, to make sure you get this. I will be following up with you and am happy to double check each attribution post you make in order to make sure it is acceptable for the wiki.

If you do not post attribution in a timely manner (I will say by SATURDAY, AUGUST 5, 2017, by 11:59 PM EST, giving you 3-4 days) or if you willfully refuse to attribute to the original author, disciplinary action will be taken. This is not an assumption that you will refuse; it is a clear statement of intent to follow through with reinforcing the integrity of this wiki. There is no room for negotiation regarding this matter. Attribution must be provided clearly in all cases.

Thank you for your time, and I will be touching base on Friday if you have not responded by then.

Dexanote

Administrator, SCP Foundation Wiki

Above post, originally posted in chat thread, repeated for clarity;

+ Show above post.

Can't find a proper page elsewhere for him, so I will submit this here.

Recently somebody found that dialogue and text appearing in SCP-2075 The Way of All Flesh, 2406 The Collossus, 2095 The Siege of Gyaros, 2510 Our Broken Salvation and others are more or less directly lifted from the works of 3rd century writer Zosimos of Panoplis, a third century alchemist writer. These fragments were included within the abovementioned SCP articles without any clear attribution that was easily accessible and readable on the page or its discussion. Of note is that these SCPs are key Sarkic pieces, and the writings contributed to the ramblings of a Sarkic-touched character.

After some discussion and multiple staffmembers proposing avenues which we may have dealt with the problem, I directly PM'd Metaphysician with a thorough explaination of the problem and instructed him to either clearly attribute the fragments in question in discussion or in-article, or to remove them if he found that to be a better course of action. Less than three hours later, the offending material was removed from most of those articles, with remaining text in 2510 attributed on page 4 of the discussion page, as its own singular post directly linking to the text online.

In the future, if a piece is found to be taken from a public domain source and not clearly cited in-article or in discussion by the author or co-author, a mod or higher is to directly PM the author and ask them to change it, explaining that even if it's public domain it needs to be cited somewhere clearly. If they refuse, discipline as standard.

This matter is dealt with.

After further discussion on 4/August I sent off a delayed Disciplinary PM to Metaphysician, containing the following;

+ Show Disc. PM

Hello again, Metaphysician;

After additional discussion with staff, this is an official warning for the plagiarism discussed previously. While the rapid response was appreciated, the offense is serious. The reason for a warning in lieu of an outright ban is an assumption of good faith. Further infractions will make this good faith assumption impossible, and result in a permanent banchecking/discussion with other administrative members about said policy.

Thank you for understanding, and have a good night.

Dexanote

Administrator, SCP Foundation Wiki.

TLDR Metaphysician fixed his thing and was officially warned to not do it again.

EDIT - Edited because I CTRL+C'd the entire google doc i finalized this on, rather than just the relevant section.

Last edited on 05 Aug 2017 01:12 by Dexanote Show more

Re: Disciplinary - Metaphysician

thedeadlymoose 16 Sep 2017 02:16

This is to address the question in this thread: Why wasn't Metaphysician banned for plagiarism?

First, what Metaphysician did:

Metaphysician credited the ancient third-century philosopher Zosimo for inspiring all of Sarkicism. His attribution:

The inspiration for this group comes primarily from the occult/alchemical writings "The Visions of Zosimos". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zosimos_of_Panopolis

Turning what is meant to be a strictly symbolic dream sequence into something much more literal.

And here:

Oddly, flesh beasts aren't even my thing normally; it just turned out that way when trying to come up with a literal interpretation of some old alchemical (specifically the Visions of Zosimos) and Gnostic texts.

Metaphysician also copied exact text from Zosimos, from the aforementioned "Visions". He did not explicitly credit this, or indicate that he took the philosopher's exact words and placed them in the mouths of ranting Sarkic characters.

Because of Metaphysician crediting the source as inspiration, it was an obvious possibility, to many of us, that Metaphysician copied the philosopher's texts as an "Easter egg" / "Genius Bonus" for those who've read the same material as he has.

To steal examples from TroyL: This is roughly equivalent to quoting an obscure Bible verse or passage of Homer that only those "in the know" would recognize.

This is plagiarism in the technical academic sense, and would be beyond the pale in academia. However, while most of our site members (including staff) have a background in academia and no background in fiction, we are still a fiction website. And this wouldn't be considered plagiarism in published fiction; if you look at any plagiarism scandal in fiction, it's about copying current authors and passing their work off as your own. Ancient texts are freely referenced, lifted from, etc, and their fan base only tends to grow when people figure that out because there's nothing nerds love more than obscure references.

A good example is True Detective, which lifted whole-cloth passages and elements from "The King In Yellow", to the delight of fandom (and disappointment when it became clear that the creator had no intention of taking even more). The creator did not acknowledge the inspiration (unlike Metaphysician) until people noticed the references — and with a wide audience (which Metaphysician's work also has), it was obvious this was intentional. Technically plagiarism, but no one would even think to call it that. True Detective was lauded for this lifting of elements.

(Incidentally, there actually was some actual plagiarism controversy about True Detective lifting passages from Thomas Ligotti — but that's a contemporary author. No writing community consensus was reached there, that I'm aware of.)

EDIT: Interesting, related reading: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/08/06/true_detective_plagiarized_no_nic_pizzolatto_did_not_plagiarize_thomas_ligotti.html

I would've been fine requiring the author of True Detective to attribute, but not fine banning him, to carry this analogy further.

All of this means that my assessment is that anything beyond a warning (possibly not even that, but I do not wish to adjudicate that) would have been inappropriate in this case, unless Metaphysician refused to attribute the text, or we somehow determined his intent was certainly dishonest (aka, intentional plagiarism).

My assessment is backed up in broad strokes by our only actual real-world plagiarism expert, TroyL. (For what that's worth — since TroyL declines to further weigh in on this situation, as he is retired. So much for my Appeal To Authority!)

Last edited on 16 Sep 2017 02:36 by thedeadlymoose Show more

Re: Disciplinary - Metaphysician

Dexanote 16 Sep 2017 02:29

Adding to this…

Metaphysician was found to have copied original work from a 3rd century writer in several early Sarkic articles. However, as far as I could see (through several casual forum posts by Meta, linked by moose there) that Metaphysician had no intention of hiding this from the site or administration.

This was noticed by several people (of interest is TvTropes itself having a ‘Genius Bonus’ entry directing attention towards it), and a number of staff discussions began to take place over the course of several days. A lot of discussion revolved around proposals to permaban Metaphysician immediately, as it appeared to be a clear cut case of plagiarism. Logic generally followed the “If this happened in university, he’d be expelled” narrative, since most of us have academic backgrounds and are familiar with that line of punishment.

Decibelle reached out to Reserve Administrator thedeadlymoose as well as now-retired Administrator TroyL. Both of them have experience in real-world writing communities; TroyL in particular has experience IRL which involves dealing with plagiarism in both academic and non-academic settings, and so his input was invaluable. Troy explicitly recommended against any ban unless Meta refused to attribute.

Both TroyL and thedeadlymoose independently suggested that we directly approach Metaphysician and ask him to fix the lack of attribution. Advisory Staff member Nusquam also had made the same suggestion in earlier discussions among staff. All three suggestions followed similar logic:

This was compared with taking text from the Bible or Homer and using it in a fiction piece, seeing as the original work is public domain. While an academic setting would roast someone who ripped it off without attribution, we are not an academic setting. Other fiction-focused creative writing communities would not treat this type of plagiarism the same as, say, wholesale ripping a draft off the sandbox, or directly taking text or dialogue without permission from an established SCP (though our treatment of such is probably better seen as a moral reaction, as I’m not sure how CC3.0 would technically treat that. Moving on from that tangent though.) Plagiarism in creative writing settings usually means somebody ripped off a currently active or recent author, and old stuff is used all the time. Dracula is a villain in a ton of video games, the Bible is quoted in a ton of media. This is a similar situation.

After receiving input from TroyL and thedeadlymoose, as well as not encountering any serious pushback from admins that were reachable at the time, I directly PM’d Metaphysician. You can find the PM above. I sent it about 1130ish PM on August 1, 2017; less than 3 hours later Metaphysician responded to my PM, and had added attribution in the comment sections (which is generally what we ask authors to do). Less than one hour after that, he responded again to me, and had removed chunks from several of the offending pieces and modified remaining sections.

As Metaphysician had rectified the issue (e.g. lack of attribution) I (as the Administrator acting on this matter) decided that the case was closed. I double checked with other admins, and after sending the Official Warning I finished up the original post of this thread and posted to 05command.

This is a late couple of comments written in order to shed some clarity and transparency to this event. Nobody had actually logged the admins’ decision making process here, and there was a question of exactly why a plagiarist was not banned. It comes down to the fact that there are different forms of plagiarism, and in a creative writing community (and NOT an academic setting) this particular issue was best resolved peacefully and with direct conversation. Autopermabanning Metaphysician would have been a huge mistake.

It’s clear that many on staff (including myself, for now) are unclear as to what counts as punishable or bannable plagiarism, which is understandable. It’s fucking complicated. So I will be educating myself and putting together a clearer plagiarism policy over the coming weeks, so as to help avoid issues like this again in the future.

EDITS MADE: first to make it clear I'm not just replying, but expanding Moose's post. Second to clarify that Zosimos didn't plagiarize, which my phrasing suggested.

Last edited on 16 Sep 2017 02:33 by Dexanote Show more

Re: Disciplinary - Metaphysician

SoullessSingularity 04 Feb 2020 00:36

Metaphysician's 5k entry appears to have significant portions of the work (specifically under 'biography') that are extremely similar to a wikipedia article. Below is just one example:

FRom 5k:

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa (8 March 1566 – 8 September 1613) was Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza. A composer, he is best known for his expressive madrigals and sacred music pieces that use a distinctive chromatic language not heard again until the late 19th century.

from wikipedia:

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa (probably 8 March 1566 – 8 September 1613) was Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza. As a composer he is known for writing intensely expressive madrigals and pieces of sacred music that use a chromatic language not heard again until the late 19th century.

As reported by Buttfranklin in this thread.

Note that wikipedia is CC-BY-SA 3.0 but there was no attribution.

EDIT: Please note that absentmindednihilist has been able to provide a line-by-line diff.

This indicates approximately 2.5 paragraphs of nearly word for word, while the rest have same ordering of information and turns of phrase but are not word for word.

---

Living the dream, or dreaming the life?

Last edited on 04 Feb 2020 21:23 by A Random Day Show more

Re: Disciplinary - Metaphysician

A Random Day 04 Feb 2020 00:43

This is the second time he’s committed plagiarism and he only got away with it the first time on a technicality. This isn’t even a few quotes, this is at least two and a half paragraphs that are nearly word-for-word. Permaban, plain and simple.

Last edited on 04 Feb 2020 00:54 by A Random Day Show more

Re: Disciplinary - Metaphysician

(account deleted) 04 Feb 2020 01:29

thirding***

Last edited on 04 Feb 2020 01:29 by (account deleted) Show more

Re: Disciplinary - Metaphysician

RJB_R 04 Feb 2020 01:28

Pointless and frustrating move by Meta. We’ve got no choice but a perma here. Even if it’s CC and one could argue he forgot, this is the second time he’s failed to acknowledge the work of others that wouldn’t have been a problem with a citation.

What a travesty. Why?

---

Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Re: Disciplinary - Metaphysician

Dexanote 04 Feb 2020 01:31

It is not difficult to attribute material directly copied from god damn Wikipedia.

Permanent Ban. This is infuriating.

Re: Disciplinary - Metaphysician

SoullessSingularity 04 Feb 2020 01:53

Salutations,

I am SoullessSingularity, Administrator of the SCP Foundation. This is a notification that you have been issued a permanent ban as voted upon by the Disciplinary team regarding a plagiarism case. If you have any questions or concerns, you may respond to me here, in site17, or by contacting me over IRC private messaging. You may appeal shortly or in one year.

Sincerely,
SoullessSingularity

Ban implemented.

---

Living the dream, or dreaming the life?

Re: Disciplinary - Metaphysician

ProcyonLotor 04 Feb 2020 01:59

I'm aware at this point it is essentially a symbolic gesture, but Metaphysician is also indefinitely banned from contest participation under my authority as CO Captain.

Re: Disciplinary - Metaphysician

RJB_R 05 Feb 2020 03:22

After a thorough inspection of Metaphysician's works, it has been determined that additional instances of plagiarism are present in SCP-2454 and SCP-2510.

SCP-2510 will be addressed first. This was an article from the first 2017 incident which Meta was allowed to keep/adapt content after citing the Allegory of Zosimos. He specifically and correctly attributes Zosimos the source material for "the last part".

Metaphysician failed to disclose that another part of the SCP, "Document SCP-2510-1-Epsilon: Object 2309", has material lifted almost verbatim from Sethian literature.

While last time there was some leniency due to the ages of the material, that is no longer in play due to Dexanote in 2017 specifically noting that "This means, at minimum, to post a clear attribution post in the discussion of each relevant article with clear links to wherever it was you took the text from, as well as whatever additional context you feel is necessary."

Metaphysician failed to do so, either neglecting or willfully defying a request to please include a citation when directly copying words he did not write while presenting them as his own.

SCP-2454 has unoriginal content dating back to the original incident. In 2017 staff didn't detect that the article copies from a Scientology Wikipedia page. The text it lifts is almost verbatim in some cases, and actually verbatim in others.

SCP-2454

+ SCP Quote

Have you ever found yourself dancing when no one else was?

Do dead stars still burn?

Do you think four times is enough times to have been solicited by the sea?

Have you followed the smoke?

What is the color of space?

Why are you a liar?

Do you think there is anything wrong with having your privacy invaded?

What do you wish you hadn't done?

What promised did you fail to keep?

Do you have a secret you are afraid we'll find out?

Have you ever had unkind thoughts about ██████ ████?

Have you ever turned away from the smoke?

How many lies have you told since this session began?

Do these questions upset you?

Why won't you take off your mask?

Why did you hide your soul from us?

Did you think we wouldn't know?

Why do you choose to be sick?

Have you ever destroyed a world?

Do you remember how it felt?

Why do you hate the archons?

You let it in, didn't you?

Do you still die in your dreams?

Do you believe you deserve to exist?

+ Wiki Quote/s

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scientology_security_checks

"The contents of the Joburg security check were later revised into what became ‘The Only Valid Security Check”. Added to the Sec Check are new questions such as:
‘Do you collect sexual objects?
Do you have a secret you are afraid I’ll find out?
Are you upset by this security check?
Have you ever had unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard?’
Auditor’s Sec Check
This sec check, comprising 170 questions, was meant for staff auditors and field auditors.
‘Do you hope you won’t be found out?
Do you think there is anything wrong with having your privacy invaded?
What do you wish you hadn’t done?
Are you upset by this security check?’
Whole Track Security Check
‘Have you ever destroyed a culture?"

+ Similarities

Article	Uncredited Source
"Do you have a secret you are afraid we'll find out?"	"Do you have a secret you are afraid I'll find out?"
"Have you ever had unkind thoughts about ██████ ████? "	"Have you ever had unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard?"
"Do you think there is anything wrong with having your privacy invaded?"	"Do you think there is anything wrong with having your privacy invaded?"
"What do you wish you hadn't done?"	"What do you wish you hadn't done?"
"Are you upset by this security check?"	"Do these questions upset you?"
"Have you ever destroyed a world?"	"Have you ever destroyed a culture?"

SCP 2510

+ SCP Quote

"("Then God, the ruler of the aeons and the powers, divided us in wrath. Then we became two aeons. And the glory in our heart left us […] along with the first knowledge that breathed within us. And glory fled from us; it entered into […] great […] which had come forth, not from this aeon from which we had come forth, […] But knowledge entered into the seed of great aeons. For this reason I myself have called you by the name of that man who is the seed of the great generation or from whom (it comes). After those days, the eternal knowledge of the God of truth withdrew from […]. Since that time, we learned about dead things, like men. Then we recognized the God who had created us. For we were not strangers to his powers. And we served him in fear and slavery. And after these things, we became darkened in our heart(s). Now I slept in the thought of my heart. […] YALDABAOTH6 […] blind. The Enemy […] Sarkic Legions. ADYTUM, a city older than […] - a place of terrible, unnumbered crimes. […] as long as the Archons remain unbound. […] ION THE BETRAYER. […] THE DEATHLESS. […] CRIMSON […] HORNED BRUTE. ASTAPHE, EMPRESS OF [..]. The great and powerful Archon, who is full of anger, the successor of the Archon of the outer darkness, the place in which all forms change, [..] who is spread out upon the way of the Midst, who carries off the souls by theft.")"

+ Real Quote 1

Source: http://gnosis.org/library/frgsp.htm

"[Beginning missing] … the souls by theft:

when they take my soul to that place
it will give to them the mystery of their fear, which is XAPIHP

And when they take it to the places of all the ranks of the Paraplex,
the great and powerful Archon, who is spread out upon the way of the Midst,
who carries off the souls by theft:

when they take my soul to that place
it will give to them the mystery of their fear, which is AXPW

And again when they take my soul to the place of Typhon,
the great and powerful Archon with the face of an ass`s
who is spread out upon the way of the Midst,
who carries off the souls by theft:

when they take my soul to that place
it will give to them the mystery of their fear, which is PPAWP

And again when they take my soul to the place of all the ranks of Jachthanabas,
the great and powerful Archon,
who is full of anger, the successor of the Archon of the outer darkness, the place in which all forms change,
who is powerful,
who is spread out upon the way of the Midst,
who carries off the souls by theft:

when they take my soul to that place
it will give to them the mystery of their fear which is AWHPNEUPSAZPA"

+ Real Quote 2

Source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread636180/pg4

"Then God, the ruler of the aeons and the powers, divided us in wrath. Then we became two aeons. And the glory in our heart(s) left us, me and your mother Eve, along with the first knowledge that breathed within us. And it (glory) fled from us; it entered into […] great […] which had come forth, not from this aeon from which we had come forth, I and Eve your mother. But it (knowledge) entered into the seed of great aeons. For this reason I myself have called you by the name of that man who is the seed of the great generation or from whom (it comes). After those days, the eternal knowledge of the God of truth withdrew from me and your mother Eve. Since that time, we learned about dead things, like men. Then we recognized the God who had created us. For we were not strangers to his powers. And we served him in fear and slavery. And after these things, we became darkened in our heart(s). Now I slept in the thought of my heart."

+ Similarities

The entire paragraph, pick any line from any of the two internet quotes and run your find command, it'll show up.

Copied from some Sethian literature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_of_Adam

Credit to Caro for doing the detective work in finding these passages and their sources.

So, to summarize everything in this thread so far:

In 2017, Metaphysician was caught having lifted material from a variety of sources without citations.

After this discovery it was decided for a variety of reasons that Metaphysician would be given the unprecedented opportunity to cite or remove the copied materials instead of receiving a ban for plagiarism.

Metaphysician was not forthcoming about the extent to which he had used other people's writing and presented it as his own.

In 2020, Metaphysician was permabanned for copying material from Wikipedia without citation or acknowledgement.

Now we're here.

If Metaphysician had taken the time to acknowledge when he used other people's words, none of this would be happening right now.

This cannot be explained away as an accident. This is serial deception, or carelessness of a magnitude I cannot begin to comprehend.

In my capacity as Administrator, I move to have all plagiarized materials stripped from the articles listed here immediately, without replacement, and let them stand as they are for the community to decide on.

---

Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Last edited on 05 Feb 2020 04:08 by RJB_R Show more

Re: Disciplinary - Metaphysician

Jacob Conwell 24 Oct 2021 06:16

Noting that the previous decision for a ban has been overturned.

A public apology has been issued to Metaphysician, which is visible in the thread below.

http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14238159/a-public-apology-to-metaphysician

Additionally, the user has been messaged via Wikidot PM regarding the decision.