h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Obey, conform, bow to social pressure - A760718
Author: HinckleyPaul213 - U841730

Is it ok?

I think this is really good. It showed me the details about this study that I'd only heard rumours about. I have no problem at all with your data. (I already commented on this in the conversation therad but I'll paste it here again so you can see it.)

The only problem I had was with the quotes at the end of the entry. I couldn't really understand who said what until I read it a few times, and there was no delineation between quotations and your words. If you could just organize the end of the piece to show which is which and to show that you're making a list of quotes, I think it would be easier to read. At least for me. But I'm a little slow.

Okay a lot slow. But don't assume that means I'm wrong!

This entry appears to have been cobbled together verbatim from a number of public websites: (http://www.dmu.ac.uk/~jamesa/learning/authority.htm), (http://cultinfobooks.com/affsubscriptionarea/sub_affnb/affnb_2002_06.htm), (http://higgy.editthispage.com/2002/04/17), (www.stanleymilgram.com/milgram.html) and as a result is not in a form to be published in the edited guide, as it is not only breaching our writing guidelines, but possibly breaking house rules for a breach of copyright.

If the author is not willing to write the entry in his own words, could he please remove this immediately.

Woodpigeon

Wow, good eye. How did you find those links? Were you already learned on this topic?

A certain search engine called Google gave me all the help I needed. You just need to stick some complete sentences in and see if you get a direct match on the web. I tried a few sentences from the entry, and all of them had a direct match, as well as showing most of the other text also..

BTW - it appears to be "plagiarism week" on PR this week...

Pity. It looked like interesting stuff. Maybe the authors thought a collage of verbatim passages might pass as original work?

This may not by laid out crystal-clear in the House-Rules. More is found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/HouseRules-Copyright (It's a bit to read, and I am not sure if everybody did it...)



HELL

Well, we seem to agree that it is a shame this is not an original article, because it is a fascinating and worthy subject!

Indeed, it seems that, plagiarised or not, the content should form the basis of a good guide entry...

I had heard of the experiments, but was not knowledgable about the thinking behind them, so I can only feel grateful that the item was still there when I came to investigate the vague but intriguing title.

I haven't tried to check Woodpigeon's assertion that it is lifted word for word from the aforementioned sites, but I trust that that info was given in good faith.

Once again, it seems a shame; and what remains is a subject worthy of an entry, with plenty of good info, but unfortunately not re-worked into a new piece that would be eligible for the EG.

ho hum
spiff

I checked some other paragraphs, Spiff. The first (big) para, for example, is a verbatim copy, word by word, punctuation and all, of an Article in psychology today.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/htdocs/prod/ptoarticle/pto-20020301-000037.asp

I agree, that this is a very interesting topic, and I hope the Authors were merly lightheaded about this. In any case, collages of published material are no-go.

I'm expecting some response from the Authors, otherwise I see where this thread is heading...

HELL

Well, I've yikesed this one.

Given all the above, plus the fact that the entry's now hidden, shouldn't we be moving this thread back to the entry?


Mikey

seconded

HELL