Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Accused of plagiarism
One of the most delightful things to be wrongly accused of is plagiarism.
After all, isn't the accuser saying in some sense "This is so good it must be stolen."
I had a very fine compliment like this once on a major news media website. In the comments section I couldn't resist pasting in most of a blog post I had written. I felt it fit some situation being written about in an article. Someone then angrily proceeded to berate me that I had taken this without attribution from The Clerk Manifesto. They were disgusted.
It is hard for me not to see this in the following way:
They were so taken with the elegance or humor or quality of my comment that they checked it against the whole of the Internet. "This is too good for some random guy to comment on the Internet!" They said, so to speak. So they took my comment and searched it. A hit! Their suspicion confirmed, they rode out to protect the honor of my blog. They informed me that I had been caught red-handed.
I explained the misunderstanding, letting them know that I am clerkmanifesto.
And they became a regular reader.
Just kidding about that very last part.
Which oddly calls into question my interpretation of all the rest of it as well.
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If you were wondering, yes, you should comment. Not only does it remind me that I must write in intelligible English because someone is actually reading what I write, but it is also a pleasure for me since I am interested in anything you have to say.
I respond to pretty much every comment. It's like a free personalized blog post!
One last detail: If you are commenting on a post more than two weeks old I have to go in and approve it. It's sort of a spam protection device. Also, rarely, a comment will go to spam on its own. Give either of those a day or two and your comment will show up on the blog.