I know I’m too late with this but I wanted to say that, while I understand the desire to help and remove as many restrictions as possible, I also do that here with PT, though not to the same degree, by allowing and even encouraging plagiarism, you open the door for scam artists to shams to build a false reputation on your work and use that reputation to defraud others. Your desire to help people might have put them in danger of being lied to and deceived.

I don’t see attribution as being that great of a requirement. There is no burden, that I see, when being asked to state where something is from. That knowledge enables readers to not only reward the original author, but research that person and perhaps discover even more works that can help them.

Knowledge is power, I agree with that. But sometimes, to a reader, the knowledge of who wrote a work is as important as what is contained inside.

That is just my experience, I still respect your decision and wish you the best of luck with it.

I know I’m too late with this but I wanted to say that, while I understand the desire to help and remove as many restrictions as possible, I also do that here with PT, though not to the same degree, by allowing and even encouraging plagiarism, you open the door for scam artists to shams to build a false reputation on your work and use that reputation to defraud others. Your desire to help people might have put them in danger of being lied to and deceived.

I don’t see attribution as being that great of a requirement. There is no burden, that I see, when being asked to state where something is from. That knowledge enables readers to not only reward the original author, but research that person and perhaps discover even more works that can help them.

Knowledge is power, I agree with that. But sometimes, to a reader, the knowledge of who wrote a work is as important as what is contained inside.

That is just my experience, I still respect your decision and wish you the best of luck with it.

in my experience it has been that people do as little as possible when using other people’s work. Will some work to rewrite and improve the text? Probably as it is a novelty at the moment.

However, most people who copy the work will have no interest in improving the work or doing any work of their own. I’ve allowed derivatives of PT articles for as long as I can remember right now but nearly all reused copies, legit or otherwise, are verbatim.

Though there is a lot of talk about mashups and remixing, it seems few people are actually doing it, especially with text. Most copying is verbatim and much of it is plagiarized.

Perhaps I don’t share their faith in humanity, but I’ve seen too much evidence to the contrary.

Thank you for the addition! I greatly appreciate the comment!

in my experience it has been that people do as little as possible when using other people’s work. Will some work to rewrite and improve the text? Probably as it is a novelty at the moment.

However, most people who copy the work will have no interest in improving the work or doing any work of their own. I’ve allowed derivatives of PT articles for as long as I can remember right now but nearly all reused copies, legit or otherwise, are verbatim.

Though there is a lot of talk about mashups and remixing, it seems few people are actually doing it, especially with text. Most copying is verbatim and much of it is plagiarized.

Perhaps I don’t share their faith in humanity, but I’ve seen too much evidence to the contrary.

Thank you for the addition! I greatly appreciate the comment!

The point though isn’t so much to say that there is a danger in using the content as it is to show that the dedication to the public domain is not and can not be complete. It also means that they have an “out” in case they change their mind.

As far as your second observation goes, I don’t think that is the sentiment. Reading the articles they truly believe that they are doing what is in the best interest of their readers. I feel that they are mistaken and have some experience with that, but I believe that is the angle they are coming from.

Then again, I could be wrong and they could be hiding their true motives, I have no way of knowing.