A while back, I posted a blog called Constructive Criticism. It got a little traffic, but not much. However, the basic gist was that, as Star Wars fans, we all need to play nice with each other. I'm back again to talk about playing nice, this time with regards to plagiarism.

I've been working with the folks over at the Wookieepedia on trying to reduce (I wish I could say eliminate) the plagiarism of entries from The Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia into the Wookieepedia, without prior consent or any form of credit as to the original source.

I found out about it completely by accident, while doing some retcon on an entry by cross-checking my information at the Wookieepedia. (I do this a lot, and have thanked the Wookieepedia in my Acknowledgements page for allowing me to do this.) When I found that the entry text I was trying to rework was exactly the same over on the Wookieepedia, I got a bit P.O.'ed. I then tried clicking on the "Random Entry" link on the Wookieepedia navbar, and within about 15 minutes I had found 10 more entries that were direct cut-and-paste jobs, without any credit back to the CUSWE. The unfortunate part is that this represented about 40% of the entries I looked at. Not a nice thing to discover, nor is it a good reflection on the folks who do good work on the Wookieepedia...

Between myself and the staff at the Wookieepedia, we have been developing and maintaining a good working relationship. We've defined the parameters of plagiarism as best we can fit it to this information (which isn't ours to begin with... see below), and have come up with a simple way for CUSWE entries to be used without getting permission each time. However, wikis are still self-policing honor systems, and people don't necessarily have to abide by the rules. Don't get me wrong... there are lots of "wikipedians" who try to ensure the integrity of the material, but they tend to get overburdened. This is especially true with wikis as big as the Wookieepedia, where it's hard to police all the new entries. There continues to be plagiarism over there, even though it has been requested that people cease and desist. The nice part is that the Wookieepedia staff is trying to police it as much (if not more) than I am, in an effort to put a stop to it.

Also note that this isn't a rant about my own site. There are several "Wookieepedians" who think it's OK to cut-and-paste from the official Star Wars Databank and Hyperspace websites, among others.

I realize that this is not an earth-shattering situation, given the state of world today, but it does highlight the need for some netiquette among us Star Wars fans. A quick read-through of the encyclopedia site makes it perfectly clear that I don't mind sharing what I've written for the encyclopedia with other fans, as long as they ask permission first before taking anything. There are plenty of fan sites out there that have asked for, and received, permission to copy stuff out of the encyclopedia.

As I started to say earlier, defining plagiarism in this environment is sorta tough. I've said all along that the stuff in the CUSWE (and Wookieepedia, despite the GNU FDL) is ultimately copyrighted, trademarked, and owned by George Lucas and LucasFilm Limited. We're just re-packaging it. Thus, we've tended to hover around definition of plagiarism that is focused on direct cut-and-paste jobs, or anything that is lifted from the CUSWE (or any other site) without permission or without proper credit being given to the original site. It works, especially for some of the less-detailed entries.

When you boil it all down, my basic point is this: Like many others out there in the Internet fan community, I've put fifteen-plus years into researching, documenting, and producing my website, and I can't abide people who simply copy my work verbatim into another site and then claim it as their own. Not only is it impolite and somewhat illegal, it's just lazy. We're all part of this huge community, and we need to all play nice together. All it takes is an e-mail to ask permission, and a simple "thank you" note that links to the CUSWE, and people can use what they need.

Comments? Questions? Concerns? Post 'em here and let me know what you're thinking. I've always maintained that reader input is as valuable as the source material itself. Without the continued support and enthusiasm of my readers, I'm lost.

Cheers!