Saturday, August 18, 2007

Plagiarizer Nabbed at Blogger News Network

A plagiarizer has been nabbed at Blogger News Network.

BNN publisher Robert Hayes was contacted yesterday by an author who said that a post by Shantanu Duttu on BNN contained plagiarized text from his published work. Hayes immediately investigated and discovered that Duttu "had extensively plagiarized many, many of his posts at BNN, copying outright from other news sources."

Today Hayes notified contributors, writers, and registered users at BNN of this issue. He said BNN is working on improving their ability to detect plagiarism.

"BNN strives for the highest ethical standards," Hayes wrote in his memo. "When we fail to achieve those standards, as we have in this case, we are obliged to be forthright about our failure."

My personal opinion? I post on BNN and I find the site well run. When a writer first starts posting at BNN, their posts are blocked briefly so that they can be screened before publication. As a writer at BNN, I had a question for Robert Hayes and he got back to me within hours. That told me that a writer at BNN is not treated like some Rodney Dangerfield character who can't "get no respect". And BNN now has the added perk of a Book Review Club. Approved writers can join the Club and get free books, DVDs and CDs to review --which reminds me, I have a book to review for them.

BNN's ethics where showcased a year or two when they stopped taking Google ads, as a way of protesting their unethical practices in China.