What to do about plagiarism?

Question

Unfortunately, I have noticed answers in this community are more susceptible to plagiarism than in other communities. (More specifically, plagiarizing without permission and/or attribution from various sources around the web.) Sometimes, most of the content of the answer consists of this plagiarized content. I suspect that this problem might get worse when we go public.

From what I can tell, the correct procedure seems to flag the post for moderator attention.

Answer 1

First off, thanks to all of you who've been flagging plagiarized answers. It is very important to the future of this site that answers which draw on the writings of others attribute them properly.

I've just warned a third user about this, and frankly seeing so much copying on a site this young is worrying. Please note:

• If you lack the expertise to answer a question on your own, leave the job to someone else. Plagiarized answers will be deleted without warning, potentially leaving a question unanswered.

• It is never ok to pass off significant amounts of someone else's writing as your own, not even temporarily. You wouldn't claim the words of your prophet as your own, would you? So why take credit for the words of your brothers?

• If you find an excellent explanation for something elsewhere, using it while giving proper credit is trivial:

  1. Paste the quotation into your answer.
  2. Select the pasted quotation and press Ctrl+Q - this will cause the text to appear distinct from your own words.
  3. Paste the URL of the page, or type the name of the book or article where you found the text. Follow it with the title and name of the author, if available.

That's it. You can get fancy with the formatting if you like, but at minimum a proper quote should indicate which text was copied, where it was copied from, and who originally wrote it.

Marc Gravell brings up another good point, that while not strictly plagiarism it can be problematic if your answer consists chiefly of content copied from a single source, even when it is properly attributed: if the license under which the original was published doesn't allow free distribution, you stand a good chance of running afoul of copyright "fair use" laws. If the owner objects, we're obligated to remove such copies entirely, with no chance for you to recover it.

There are a number of other related issues here, mostly concerning the reputation of your site, and potentially things like your ranking on Google and other search engines - but suffice to say, you don't want to become known as "that Islam content farm".

Answer 2

The following things can be done

• Comment on the answer - Please cite the source of your answer. This seems to be picked up from somewhere.
  Also if you have editing privileges and you know the source you can edit it yourself.
• Downvote (and announce on chat for others to down vote. No forcing though.)

Flagging is an option but keep it only as the last resort.

Well then you would ask me -
I’ve heard that Islamic knowledge cannot be copyrighted. So how can it be considered piracy to use Islamic texts?

Allah says in the Quran

Allah says: "Indeed, Allah commands you to render trusts to whom they are due and when you judge between people to judge with justice. Excellent is that which Allah instructs you. Indeed, Allah is ever Hearing and Seeing.." [Sûrah al-Nisâ': 58] (The Qur’anic quotations contained herein are from the Saheeh International translation.)

Here even Allah says to respect those people whom you have some due. I mean to say that the translations / articles are the hard work of the authors, you cannot just pick them up without giving them credit. You cannot be called a righteous Muslim in that case.

The general trend of Muslims (or any other sect) is to freely distribute religious texts, but they don't realize that every publication has production costs like office cost, storage cost, printing costs, etc to bear.

Copyrighted material is a trust that must be respected. When you freely distribute stuff you harm those involved in its production. Thus,it would be great if you protect these rights by adhering to them.

I would like to suggest a thing -

Whenever you quote something from some site in your answer please post the authors name as well as the link to that page .
And in the case of Quran translation please write which translations are being used. like if you use Saheeh International translation you are requested to write - The Qur’anic quotations contained herein are from the Saheeh International translation. (as stated by this website here). This should apply to other translations as well.

As said by Marc Gravell in the comments -

However, the key point is "observing the rules / policy of the source / author", rather than including a particular phrase. A different source could have a very different policy, anywhere from "copy, have fun" to "do not copy it at all"

So please make it a point to check the FAQ to see for "content usage" or "copyright restrictions".
Thank you. May Allah guide you onto the right path.