One thing I have learned while writing for Plagiarism Today is that my own feelings provide absolutely no indication of how well it will be received. Some articles I’ve liked have done really well, others fell flat.

Here are some of my personal favorite entries and articles at the three sites I currently write for.

Plagiarism Today

Video: WordCamp Dallas Presentation – The recorded footage from my presentation at WordCamp Dallas. Almost makes me look good.
Five Essential WordPress Content Protection Plugins – A great article for the WordPress crowd. Still mostly holds true nearly two years later.
Instant Article Ghostwriter: Nickle & Dime Plagiarism – A scraping product still not known by many bloggers.

Blog Herald

The Five Worst Ideas in Content Theft – For those who want to know what NOT to do when it comes to protecting your content.
How To Avoid Spambots By Using Pinging Services – How to avoid some spammers by changing your pinging servers.
The 20 Best Free Anti-Plagiarism Tools – One of my favorite lists of the best tools for fighting content theft.

European Journalism Centre

Avoiding copyright catastrophe – How not to end up defending a bad copyright move.
How much is a link worth? – About putting a price in incoming links.
Part One: Surviving the “Me” Era – A new series about the new age of media consumption and how to thrive in it.

Conclusions

Not all of these articles were big hits when they came out though some have found second and third lives in certain communities. However, these are all articles that I was at least modestly proud of when they were released and hope that, by giving them a little extra attention, they can help people who might either be new to the sites or missed them the first time.

Please let me know if any of these articles strike a chord with you or if there is something else I should focus on in the future.

Most of the readers of this site may think that this talk is a little bit on the basic side. It was definitely an introductory discussion that may be a little bit below some of the long-term readers of this site. However, as I found out compiling my notes, a refresher course never hurts either.

I want to give a special thanks to John P. for arranging the video and getting it online as well as the wonderful people working for the city of Frisco, TX for both allowing us to host the event in their town hall and for doing the video editing and making me look almost good.

The video is below followed by links to other session videos as well as some of my personal WordCamp memories.

Other Sessions

Here are the other sessions that are currently available:

• Matt Mullenweg: WordPress 2.5 and Beyond
• John Pozadzides: 45 Ways to Power Up Your Blog
• Cali Lewis & Neal Campbell: Just Start
• Liz Strauss: C’mon, Let’s Talk!
• Lorelle VanFossen: WordPress Power Tips
• Charles Stricklin & Company: WordPress Podcast Live (also includes me)
• Aaron Brazell: WordPress FAQs

There are other sessions slated to go up later this week or early next so pay attention to John P’s blog and see if any of the new sessions posted are of interest!

Personal Memories

WordCamp Dallas was a lifetime of memories in a few short days. I can not even begin to thank all of the people I met for making it special but I do want to thank Charles Stricklin, the nice people at the city of Frisco and everyone that contributed to the event. It was a great time.

With that in mind, here are, in no particular order, five of the strongest memories I’ve carried away from the event.

1. The unveiling of Woopra.
2. Matt Mullenweg announcing the release of WordPress 2.5 and 100s of laptops start firing up.
3. Lorelle ordering a large vegetable plate at a steakhouse and making all of the meat eaters, myself included, jealous.
4. Matt Mullenweg “hijacking” my laptop during the WordPress Podcast and using my beat up computer (his fingerprints are worth way more than the laptop).
5. Seeing Lorelle, Liz, Charles and everyone else for the first time in person and realizing that they are just as wonderful face to face as they are over the Web.

All in all, the experience was great and I can not wait until next year!

People who know me know that I love April Fool’s day. However, it has always come with a conflict of interest for me on this site. Though every year I think of April Fool’s Day gags for PT, I also think of reasons not to go for it.

To date, no articles or information on the site has been knowingly and intentionally wrong. Any and all mistakes were exactly that, mistakes.

Still, PT does bring out the creativity in me. So rather than actually play any of the jokes, I’m going to list some of the stronger ideas I’ve had and why I haven’t done them.

Like all ideas, consider these non-copyrighted, feel free to steal them for next year.

The Rickroll

The Gag: Simple enough, write an article about Rick Astley and/or his record label demanding removal of the famous video (Yes, that link is a Rickroll, you have been warned) from YouTube. Then link to it repeatedly in the article and then post a notice at the end of the day that the story was a joke.

Where it Came From: Rickrolling has hit the copyright world hard. It was time to get some people back.

Why I Didn’t Do It: Fear for my life was the main reason. However, equally importantly, Reddit beat me to it earlier this year.

The RIAA Shill

The Gag: Announce that the site was sponsored by the RIAA and proceed to spend the day writing very pro-RIAA articles. Change theme to include several RIAA ads and slather the site with their logo and information.

Where it Came From: I had come up with a similar joke years ago where my then-literature site would be sponsored by Hot Topic or some other clothing store.

Why I Didn’t Do It: First, I didn’t think it was believable enough. On the other hand, the RIAA might not see the humor and come after me for trademark infringement. It’s all fun and games until someone gets a cease and desist.

The Takedown

The Gag: Replace the home page of Plagiarism Today with a notice that the site had been shut down following a DMCA notice. Then have hidden link to enter regular site.

Where it Came From: My interactions with other hosts and how they often handle copyright issues.

Why I DIdn’t Do It: I didn’t want Media Temple to get bombarded with hate mail over the issue since I’ve openly talked about where I am hosted. Also didn’t want to hurt my search engine ranking.

The Trademark Dispute

The Gag: Claim that PlagiarismToday is being forced to drop the “PT” logo due to a conflict with the PT Cruiser brand. Draft phony legal-like letters and change the logo for a day.

Where it Came From: My wife loves PT Cruisers so it seemed like a natural joke given the confusion in the house.

Why I Didn’t Do It: Besides the potential legal issues, as I just said, my wife loves PT Cruisers. I can not promise where I’d sleep if I had done it.

The Lawsuit

The Gag: Draft a phony lawsuit from a fake person and “sue” myself by posting it on the site. Link to the other person’s blog, which I would have created, and pretend that there is an ongoing dispute.

Where it Came From: This one was initially proposed by one of my many lawyer friends who was going to help me draft the fake lawsuit.

Why I Didn’t Do It: Too believable, at least to people who do not know me. Also, it would have been a lot of work, setting up and writing for a second blog just for a one-day joke.

Conclusions

Every year on this day I have a lot of fun watching the different jokes that are played and even being caught by a few of them. It’s a fun day filled with a lot of laughs.

Maybe some day I’ll think of a joke that is right for this site but, in the meantime, I more than enjoy partaking from the sidelines.

So, thank you very much for bearing with me as I take a day to recover, get caught up and answer all of my email.

I hope you found this list at least somewhat amusing and I’d love to hear your ideas for jokes too. Perhaps you can think of something I can use next year…

A Quick Word About WordCamp

I had a great time at WordCamp Dallas. You can already find photos of me and my talk as well as a video of my talk that was recorded live.

However, the live video had some audio troubles and I’m not going to post it here. Instead, I’m going to wait for the professional version that was recorded by John P and post it later this week.

Still, I do want to thank my old friends including Charles Stricklin, Lorelle VanFossen and Liz Strauss for making the event so much fun.

Also, thanks to my new friends and people I met including Spamboy, DB, and Chris Jean among many, many others.

It was a great time all around and I’m looking forward to next year!

More to come.