Plagiarism in the blogosphere

I spent an hour or so chatting with Elisa Camahort, BlogHer co-founder, on Sunday, a day after BlogHer ended. Among other things, we talked about the upswing in plagiarism on the Web. (Are bloggers doing it intentionally or are they just being lazy? Not sure.)

Elisa pointed out that several bloggers just plain stole passages from the San Francisco Chronicle writeup about BlogHer, and she asked: "What's to be done about something like this? It's just wrong! Right?"

For example, here's the lead on the Chron's story:

Blogging is supposed to be democratizing the world of information, empowering the individual.

And it is -- especially for male individuals. ... At conferences for bloggers, female writers find themselves in a very small minority, attendees say. And so, like in many social movements before this, women are gathering to do something about it.

Charlotte's Weblog begins its post this way:

Blogging is supposed to be democratizing the world of information, empowering the individual. And it is -- especially for male individuals. Half of all bloggers are women, according to surveys, yet the most popular blogs are created overwhelmingly by men. At conferences for bloggers, female writers find themselves in a very small minority, so women are gathering to do something about it.

Again, here's the Chron:

Three Bay Area bloggers -- Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort and Jory DesJardins -- are holding a conference today in Santa Clara in an effort to raise women's prominence in the blogosphere. The BlogHer conference started with -- what else? -- a blog, where the organizers posted ideas for the event. Feedback from other bloggers quickly materialized.

The resulting event is as much about community building and sharing skills as it is about getting attention.

"This is a conference that the community built," said Camahort. For example, two rooms at the event are given over to sessions conceived, organized and run by the participants themselves. Sessions in these rooms include "Feminist Hip-Hop Bloggers," "Blogs in Academia" and "MommyBlogging."

The conference maxed out its capacity with 300 registrants, 85 percent of whom are women, the organizers said. Half of them hail from outside the Bay Area. A few will come from as far as Europe.

These women have blogged about feminism, politics, business and technology. They've blogged about their innermost thoughts, their children's antics and -- although this has caused problems for many -- their jobs.

And here's the lead from The Corner:

Three Bay Area bloggers -- Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort and Jory DesJardins -- held a conference yesterday in Santa Clara in an effort to raise women's prominence in the blogosphere. The BlogHer conference started with -- what else? -- a blog, where the organizers posted ideas for the event. Feedback from other bloggers quickly materialized. The resulting event was as much about community building and sharing skills as it is about getting attention. ...

"This is a conference that the community built," said Camahort. For example, two rooms at the event are given over to sessions conceived, organized and run by the participants themselves. Sessions in these rooms include "Feminist Hip-Hop Bloggers," "Blogs in Academia" and "MommyBlogging."

The conference maxed out its capacity with 300 registrants, 85 percent of whom are women, the organizers said. Half of them hail from outside the Bay Area - a few came from as far as Europe.

These women have blogged about feminism, politics, business and technology. They've blogged about their innermost thoughts, their children's antics and -- although this has caused problems for many -- their jobs.

It's called original writing, people. If you borrow from someone else's writing -- whether they're a blogger, newspaper writer, whatever -- you need to attribute it.

If you can't string together some original thoughts, in your own words, then don't blog.