So it was over my breakfast this morning I read all of the drama that has been unfolding during the night.
Firstly I think it only right to apologise. I think if we, as the administrators of this community had taken more definitive action sooner then perhaps a lot of this drama would have been avoided. Alas we are where we are.
There have been a couple of very interesting points raised in various discussions and I want to address each of them specifically. Firstly, Plagiarism:
We have thus far only suffered very marginal plagiarism within our community and I feel this is mainly due to the abundance of wonderfully talented members sharing truly amazing work. Obviously today's high profile drama is a blemish which I'm sure you also would like to see put firmly behind us.
Plagiarism is like a cancer within a community of creative people and for this reason going forward we shall be operating a ZERO tolerance policy on people found copying other peoples work WITHOUT GIVING CREDIT.
Quotes are fine. In fact copying passages of writing is fine. The important thing to realise is that NOBODY wants their work reproduced anywhere without being acknowledged as the original author. So append the source if you are copying work! Even if it's "Source: Unknown".
If you don't and we find out, you will be suspended. Ok?
What if you have read something that you believe to be plagiarised?
There's a few steps you can take depending on whether you think it was an honest mistake or an intentional attempt to mislead the community.
If it's the former, flag it with the author. They can edit the opuss there and then adding the source.
What if they don't but you know it's a copy?
Don't start a slagging match in the comments. That benefits nobody.
Do either of the following two options:
1) Within the feed, press and hold the offending opuss. A form will pop up with two buttons: "Repost" and "Report As Spam". Please press the "Report As Spam" to draw our attention to it.
2) Even better would be to notify us by email at support@opuss.com citing the offending work and the original source.
What happens if you have been accused but the "original" work is actually your own? Just let us know straight away! We will re-instate you with a big fat apology.
We really hope this addresses some of the concerns that you have regarding the Opuss community. We are hugely under-resourced but are dedicated to making this place the best we can and you will see steady incremental improvements.
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