So, I am taking the day off from PT work and will instead get caught up on my rest and handle some other writing/business that I have as well as try to get caught up on my email.

I will be back tomorrow with a regular update. Needless to say, I have a lot of great things to talk about.

I watched the story unfold on the news. I remember cheering when I heard that the storm had veered at the last moment away from the city, I then remember getting the first, isolated, reports of flooding followed soon by the now-famous images of the rushing water and the city submerged. I watched as people were plucked from their rooftops, as entire neighborhoods submerged and the city I had grown to love was nearly drowned.

What had, prior to that point, been just another evacuation became a desperate quest for information. We searched the Web, worked the phones and, more than anything else, remained fixated to the television hoping to learn something about our home, our friends and our family.

We would find out later that we were among the lucky ones. Our home was away from the worst of the flooding. It suffered only minor wind damage and we moved back into it within three weeks. However, the lives we knew before Katrina were gone. We returned to a different city, an empty town where military humvees patrolled the streets and army helicopters passed with startling regularity. It was a place where MREs were the only reliable food and if you saw another person while walking through the city, you struck up a conversation, and worked to help your fellow man.

There was no time to dwell on the changes. Hurricane Rita passed underneath the city a few days after our return and we were trapped in the city. Nowhere to evacuate too, we stayed put and hoped for the best. Fortunately, though it was another terrifying night, it worked out for the best and we were once again spared the worst.

After that storm passed, we set about helping New Orleans recover. My wife returned to her old job as a legal secretary, working extra hours to help victims of the storm and I, with my old job completely gone, took anything I could find. My first job was cleaning out a damaged Tuesday Morning store. I loaded boxes and helped pack up a tractor-trailer full of salvageable merchandise. It wasn’t about money, it was about doing something, anything to help.

I eventually settled into a slightly more long-term position doing IT work for a Mississippi construction company doing contract work here in Louisiana. It was a simple job, generating reports, keeping communications working, etc., but it involved 84 hour weeks. I worked every day, seven days a week, for 96 days, including Christmas and New Years.

I was determined to see the city come back and I was going to do my small part to make it happen.

However, as I look back over everything that has happened in the past two years, I realize that, in addition to taking so much from me, my friends and my city, it has taught me a great deal too.

If there is a silver lining to Katrina is that we are all stronger and wiser than we were before. However, many of the lessons are ones we can easily share with the world, including these seven that I have no idea how I got along without.

1. The Importance of Humor: During New Orleans’ darkest hour, as the city was flooded and help seemed so far away. Residents who stayed behind renamed their beloved town to “Lake George” after our beloved President. C’est La Levee.
2. You Can’t Trust the News: I could easily dedicate six posts of this length to the inaccuracies in the media during Katrina. For now, just one, the Superdome was not a cesspool of death and gang violence, neither was the Convention Center. Were there desperate people seeking help? Yes. But the reports of crime at both locations were greatly exaggerated.
3. Disasters Bring People Together, Politicians Drive them Apart: Racial tensions in New Orleans have always been high, but immediately following the storm, an atmosphere of cooperation filled the city. That is, until our mayor gave his famous “Chocolate City” speech. Then everything changed for the worse.
4. Government is Incompetent: Poorly-built levees, an inept immediate response and poor recovery planning. It doesn’t matter if it is Federal, state or local, you can only count on your government to provide red tape, not support. Also, in a related area, hold your leaders accountable for your infrastructure. You might live behind a levee or dam even now.
5. Home is Home: People ask me why I still live in the city. I tell them its home. Anyone who has found a home understands that. However, some people have only found a place to live and can’t grasp our staying. I would much rather have a home that was struck by a hurricane than no home at all. I hope some day everyone can relate to that.
6. Why Family Matters: My wife and I were both very lucky to have wonderful family’s that supported us through the disaster. Her family took us in while we were evacuated, mine supplied financial aid until our FEMA money arrived. Without them, I doubt we could have gotten through this.
7. Hope is Everything: When I first got back to the city, the Superdome was black from the damage. I am not much of a sports fan, but the Superdome is a landmark in the city, something I drive by twice a day. Seeing it so badly damaged crushed my heart. So, when I drove by one day and they had placed a temporary, but white, cover on the dome, I had to pull over to wipe the tears from my eyes. It was the first time I had truly felt hope in over a month. When I looked up, two other drivers were doing the exact same thing.

However, the greatest lesson I learned, the eighth one perhaps, is that a little bad weather can not crush the spirit of a great city. New Orleans is coming back, progress is being made. There are still problems to be dealt with, but so much has already been done.

To me, the proof of this is in Mardi Gras. The 2006 Mardi Gras was somber, small, barely even there. This years though, was easily the best I had been to of the seven I’ve attended. The locals were ready to celebrate and the tourists were eager to help us.

The spirit has returned. I now take comfort that, with time, the rest will follow.

That is all that matters to me.

A lot has changed since then, both on this site and on the Web around it. Plagiarism Today is not the project it started out as, but instead, has grown into something much larger and, in my opinion, much more important.

But before I look ahead to what might lie next for PT, I want to first look back at how it started, how it evolved and how it got to be where it is today.

Frustrating Months

Plagiarism Today came out of my own personal battles with plagiarists. By the time I set up the first draft of PT, I had been running sites for eight years, battling plagiarists for three and shut down several hundred rippers.

After searching for several days to find a news site or blog on this topic, and failing miserably, I decided to create one. The niche seemed natural enough and I felt that I had as much expertise “in the trenches” as anyone.

However, the first few months of running Plagiarism Today were very difficult. Though I had expected low readership in the beginning, I didn’t expect people to be openly hostile to the idea.

It seemed that all of the feedback I got were from people who didn’t “get” the idea. “This site is stupid, you’re wasting your time,” one emailer said. “It’s pointless,” said another.

This attitude was echoed in Plagiarism Today’s first major media mention, which was on the TWiT podcast. Several of the hosts wondered aloud “Where all of the plagiarism was at” and were concerned that my site was just an exercise in futility.

Worse still was that, when the site wasn’t being blasted as pointless, it was being dragged into petty flame wars as with the Wicked Wanda plagiarism case.

Combined with the effects of Hurricane Katrina, I considered shutting the site down to focus on other ventures.

Still, somehow, I kept going. Even as day jobs had me traveling around the country working 84 hour weeks, I did my best to keep up, posting articles, answering emails and doing the best that I could, hoping that the site would gain significant traction soon.

Fortunately, the answer to my prayers were closer at hand than I realized.

In The Spotlight

Ever since I had started PT, I had made it a habit to patrol the Web, especially blogs, looking for posts about content theft or plagiarism and offering help. By May in 2006, this labor had already produced some fruits.

I had already found allies in the craft blogging community as well as among sex bloggers. However, it would be another group, sports bloggers that would provide the biggest boost to the site.

Previously I had posted a comment on a Red Sox blog, Cursed to First, that was discussing theft of their content. Though I was too late to provide any help with stopping the plagiarism, I did provide some post-mortem analysis in an attempt to help.

The owner of the blog, Beth, never forgot about what I did. When Maura Welch of the Boston Globe interviewed her about the theft, Beth mentioned my name. A short time later Maura called me and on the eighth of May she published an article featuring Plagiarism Today both prominently and positively.

Though it turned out to be only the first of many mentions of Plagiarism Today in the mainstream media, it was a huge tipping point. Subscriptions, which had been very stagnant, shot up three fold overnight and Plagiarism Today was shining bright in the public eyes. Best of all, almost all of the attention was favorable.

Since then, PT has been featured in the Christian Science Monitor, Dose Magazine (Canada), The Guardian (UK) and dozens of smaller publications, including several trade ones.

Of course, not all of the publicity has been positive. The appearance by PT on Slashdot was extremely unfavorable, not to mention fatal to the site. However, I decided not to dwell on the negative attention my worst-written article received. By that point, the forward momentum was too strong and I had other things to do.

A Shift in Focus

A lot of this success can be attributed to a shift in focus of the site. Early on, it was supposed to be a site about plagiarism and plagiarism-related news on the Web. For example, Kaavya Viswanathan and her scandal was an early staple of the site.

However, even by that time, the focus had begun to shift. Plagiarism news was only covered weekly and in a “Wrap Up” format while other stories began to take center stage.

What was once a blog about all plagiarism issues was now focusing almost solely on issues affecting Webmasters and bloggers. Those issues were expanded to cover all forms of content theft, not just plagiarism, including scraping, spam blogging and image hotlinking.

That, in turn, where Plagiarism Today has been for the past year or so, working with Webmasters, companies and organizations to raise awareness and create solutions to help artists, writers and musicians who post their work on the Web get the credit they deserve.

That part is ongoing and will continue to be for some time.

Reflections

Plagiarism Today is not an A-list blog by any stretch of the imagination. It has never seen the success, traffic-wise or financially of a TechCrunch or GigaOm. The niche, it appears, is just too small.

After two years on this site, I jokingly say all I have to show for it is an overdrawn bank account, frayed nerves and a lot of friends. But it is the latter in that group that has kept me going. In short, the people I’ve met and worked with are, almost certainly, the sole reason I keep working as hard as I do.

Yes, I have managed to eek out a modest secondary income between donations, consulting work and paid blogging, but it has left me far short of wealthy or even well-off.

If I were in this for the money, I would have been gone over a year ago.

In the end, the reason I stick around is you, the reader. So I want to take this opportunity to say thank you for all of your support of myself and this site. Your emails, comments and donations have meant more to me than you probably realize.

Without you, there would be no Plagiarism Today. It is that simple.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all that you have done. I greatly look forward to sharing the next two years with you as well and I can not wait to see where this site takes us next.

If nothing else, this should be very exciting.

Update: In addition to the aforementioned appearances in the media, Plagiarism Today just made an apperance today on Cnet.

The interview is targeted mostly at community admins and forum administrators but also has useful information for anyone that accepts material from others, including blog comments.

This actually my third podcast interview, the other two however never made it to air due to technical problems. I had assumed I was just completely unrecordable but Patrick set out to prove me wrong.

Sadly, this will be the last episode of the show (at least on the Podcast network). Patrick is leaving the network following this show. He may pick up the podcast elsewhere, but not at the current address.

Still, anyone wanting to listen to me will probably enjoy it. If nothing else, it should put to rest any questions about why I stick to the written word.

Over the weekend, Plagiarism Today was honored by Liz Strauss of successful-blog.com as an “Successful and Outstanding Blog” (SOB).

This award puts Plagiarism Today alongside many great and well-known blogs on the Web as well as countless less-known, though equally great, blogs.

While it is definitely a huge personal honor, most of the credit really goes you all for your comments, conversations and ideas. That is what has made Plagiarism Today a SOB.

Thank you all for your help and support!

Right now the biggest problem I face is typing. Sitting at a computer for more than a few moments is painful. I find myself having to take breaks after every few sentences.

In order to keep Plagiarism Today running while I'm recovering, I'm in the process of sending out invitations to trusted friends and allies that might be interested in guest blogging here. I'm also opening up the floor to anyone else who wants to consider it.

Since I write days in advance, I have an update for today, which I will post in a few moments, and most of one for tomorrow. After that, if I'm still unable to type or otherwise need to recover, I'll let the guest bloggers take over until I'm able to return.

I'll keep you posted on how I'm doing. I'm very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause but I hope that you can understand. Also, obviously, while I'm keeping up with my email, I'm not replying very quickly. Please bear with me.

Thank you in advance for your understanding. 

Of the three, curiosity seems to be the least common, at least in my own experiences. Although there's little doubt that more and more people are wondering about who is reusing their content, something helped by services like Copyscape, it's still rare for people take take an interest in protecting their copyright without first discovering a problem.  Discovering plagiarism through a friend or a stranger, the way I discovered my first plagiarist, is also very unusual. Sadly, few people, for whatever reason, detect and report plagiarism involving other's works.

Strangely enough, "happy" accidents seem to be the leading means by which Webmasters and bloggers first discover that their work is being ripped off. The unfortuante side of this is that it can greatly increase the shock and emotion in what is often an already intense situation.

However, on the positive side, it can provide new clues on ways to actively search for and detect plagiarism. If an "accident" can be successfully repeated, it may be of great use to others.

A Rose By Any Other Name…

Like many, Sayesha found her first plagiarist through a search. However, she wasn't looking for the title of her post, a keyphrase or anything else to do with her writing. Instead, she was searching for her name. 

Searching for one's name is not only a way to potentially detect plagiarism, it is also a way learn what others are saying about you and find out what potential employers might find out when and if they do the same. Many bloggers already search for their own name regularly, some even have Technorati watchlists for the purpose, 

However, the usefulness of name searches for detecting plagiarism is limited severely by both how unique your name or pen name is and whether or not you put your name anywhere in your actual content. People who have unusual names and write autobiographical stories (or have the habit of refering to themselves in third person) will likely get more out of this approach.

Despite that, there is some usefulness for the technique. Names are resistant to synonymizng so they are likely to remain intact even if other parts have been automatically changed, also since many traditional copy/paste plagiarists will scoop up bylines on accident, it can aid in detection of those as well.

So. while it won't replace existing plagiarism detection techiniques, it can make an excellent additional method for those with unique names. Setting up a Google Alert to check for new instances of your name could provide some interesting insight and, perhaps, a few cases of plagiarism along the way.

Reading What You Love

If you're passionate about something and run a Web site regarding it, odds are that you keep up to date on it.  Google Alerts, blog searches and news sites are great ways to keep up to date on current events in your field.

However, they often times have the strange side effect of exposing a plagiarist or two along the way.

For example, to help with my writing for this site, I have a variety of search terms that I follow regularly including "plagiarism", "content theft", "copyright infringement" and more. Most of the time, my own posts show up in my searches, as one might expect, but a few times they've appeared twice, once on my blog and once under a different person's name.

Ignoring the fact that only a very daft person would try to steal from a site entitled "Plagiarism Today", it has happened and I've usually discovered it through a combination of Feedburner's Uncommon Uses feature and my regular Technorati searches. 

Simply put, plagiarized copies of your content are very likely to show up in the same places that your content does. If you follow the searches that mean the most to you, you'll likely find unauthorized copies of your work at some point in time.

The down side to this method is that it offers the most help to bloggers and Webmasters that focus on a smaller niche. Those dealing with a broad range of topics will likely have moved on to something else long before their old works get picked up.

Otherwise though, this is just another way that it pays to stay on top of your subject. You really never know what you may find.

How Did You Get Here?

Finally, Webmasters who have access to referral logs generally check them from time to time. It's considered good practice to know both where your traffic is coming from and where your server's resources are going. 

However, referral logs can also, sometimes, point you to a plagiarist. This was the case for Kasia who discovered a forum user was plagiarizing a post of hers, which, in turn, was borrowed, with attribution, from Robert Cringely.

Referral logs are most useful for visual artists that might have their images not just plagiarized, but hotlinked. This results not only in a theft of intellectual property, but also of server resources. Those cases, which are increasingly common as more people unfamiliar with the dynamics of the Internet begin to publish thier own blogs and their own sites.

However, theft of textual work can be detected by referral logs as well. Many times blogs link to older articles in order to reference them. This prompts visitors on the plagiarist's site to click the links and visit yours, causing the duplicate article to show up as a referral. 

The downside to this method is that it simply will not work if the image is hosted on the plagiarist's server or if the text is copied without the links intact. Also, since many plagiarists do not get a lot of traffic at their sites, the odds of one showing up very high in the logs is slim. In short, it would almost certainly take a very thorough check of the referral logs to catch all but the biggest and boldest of plagiarists.

Finally, most free sites and blog services do not offer access to referral logs and though a free counter can offer many of the same benefits, it will do little to stop image plagiarism.  

Despite that, referral logs can and do work. Plagiarists are regularly caught using them and it makes perfect sense to check your site's statistics regularly for other reasons, not just stopping plagiarism.

Conclusions

In the end, the accidents that lead to the discovery of plagiairism are rarely accidents at all. They're the natural outcome of good Webmasters doing the things that good Webmasters do. They might not expect to find plagiarism of their work while doing it, but an added perk of the behavior is that, sometimes at least, it can help you find the people that are stealing your content.

Sadly though, it's not enough to rely on "happy accidents" to detect plagiarism. Of all of the cases I have handled, only a small percent were discovered by surprise. Rather, the vast majority have come in through either my Google Alerts, special plagiarism searches or good-natured readers that, when made aware of the problem, began to actively help me persue copycats.

Despite that, it's important to keep one's eyes open and realize that the things Webmasters do every day can yield surprising results.

Simply put, the fact that there are more thorough and more effective ways to hunt plagiarists should not discourage us from using the information we already access regularly to aid us. It takes no time to open our eyes and pay attention.

In fact, it's probably the easiest step any of us can take when protecting our content.

[tags]Plagiarism, Content Theft, Copyright Infringement, Accidents, Technorati, Search Engines[/tags] 

Though I anticipate being able to maintain Internet access and, thus, this site, over the next few days my posting could be somewhat intermittent as I figure things out and settle in to this very different lifestyle. I apologize in advance for that should it become a problem and hope to maintain a regular posting schedule following today.

I hope that everyone can understand and forgive any problems that this may cause, especially in the short run.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.

As a resident of Algiers, I am being allowed to return tomorrow, Monday the 19th, to my home. Though I am excited about going and the word appears to be very good, I don’t know what to expect when I get there.

It’s highly likely that my Internet and phone access will be out upon my arrival. Though we have gas and water, which are definitely more important, I will be very limited in my communications during that time.

Though it’s my hope that everything will be normal and I can just hit the ground running, I know it’s not likely. As such, don’t expect an update for this site tomorrow (Monday) or the day after (Tuesday). I’ll do what I can to get back in touch, but please understand that the situation is very uncertain at the moment.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding. It means a lot during these very odd times. I promise to be back as soon as feasible. No matter what, it shouldn’t be more than a few days.

Take care and I’ll speak to you soon.

[tags]Hurricane Katrina, Katrina, Evacuation, Algiers[/tags]

As some of you may have noticed, I recently added a section of the sidebar called “Supporters”. It contains a list of all sites that I know of that have added a permanent link to PlagiarismToday. I encourage you to check out those sites, if you have a few free moments, as many of them have very interesting content and all have expressed an interest in battling online plagiarism.

If you’re interested in becoming a supporter yourself and swapping links, just let me know by adding the link and then dropping a line via the contact form on the site. Though the second step isn’t really necessary, since I monitor all links coming into the site, it will ensure I post the return link as soon as possible.

I thank you all for your support. The response to this site, considering how new it is, has been amazing. I never expected this site to grow as fast as it has and I have you all to thank for it.

Finally, on a more personal note, I want to let everyone know that I am a New Orleans resident and, as such, have been displaced by Katrina. I’m lucky enough to have a good place to stay and even semi-regular Internet access, however, it has definitely hampered my ability to research and post new articles on this site.

I’m working hard to maintain a normal update schedule, it does me a lot of good to maintain some normalcy, but do note that I might be forced to skip a few days coming up as things develop.

I’m sorry for all of the housekeeping items in today’s update, we’ll return to our regularly scheduled programing tomorrow. I don’t want this to be a blog about me in any way, shape or form but, sometimes, life simply butts in too far.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.

[tags]Plagiarism, Links, Link Exchange[/tags]