A question about ethics!

[cosmopolitic]

What if you knew someone on these messageboards were plagerizing someone else's art? What would happen? Would you guys ban this person? Would you not support her/him? Would s/he be ousted? Or would you not care at all?

This is a moral question I am currently discussing in my philosophy class.

[Neosurfur]

if I was an owner of a forum or message board that somone was doing that in and I found out, I would warn them and if the problem persists, it would result in banning

[cosmopolitic]

if I was an owner of a forum or message board that somone was doing that in and I found out, I would warn them and if the problem persists, it would result in banning

But don't you find it kindof funny that people don't get angry at the person who is cheating? I know of this one messageboard where someone was copying other people's art and someone had notified the administrators about it but the moderators didn't ban him even though he still continued to cheat! I guess he just liked the attention from everyone, but still don't you find it very disturbing and wrong?

[Neosurfur]

yeah I guess so

[TerraFrost]

when this has happened here, posts were made exposing the fact that the person was plagerizing, and their posts were subsequently moved.

the consequences of such exposure are often their own deterent. being exposed as a plagerist will make many people think less of you, and will probably prevent you from getting the praise that you might have otherwise gotten if you ever did decide to post your own work in the future.

also, i'm half tempted to move this to the twilight zone ('cause i think it might get a better discussion there - unless you're trying to subtly make an accusation about some artwork here?), but i suppose it sorta fits here, too, so i'll leave it (unless you want me to move it, heh).

[cosmopolitic]

Nah just about the psychological impacts behind cheating. I saw this one guy cheat in this class i had who sat on the front row. I mean why would he cheat? It would have been so obvious that he would get caught. Move this if you want cuz I want to see responses.

Kewl dude.

[TerraFrost]

i saw someone blatantly cheating on a computer science test, once. no books or calculaters were allowed, yet they had their books on the floor, open, and were flipping through them. they also had programmable graphing calculators beside them, open, and were punching buttons on them. they later asked a TA for clarification on a question, and the TA did nothing!

that annoyed me so much that i reported them to the teacher. at the next test, the teacher wanted me to point them out to him. if exposing cheaters (atleast at the university level) requires you risk being seen by the class as a "tattle tale", it's not worth it.

of course, cheating on a test and taking action on a message board are two diff. things.

anyway, *moved*

[Nuxius]

They'll pay for it though when they graduate and try to get a job.

Anyway, as to what I think about this, well, to be honest, Terrafrost pretty much summed them up rather well in his first post in this thread.

[Drazo]

I would report it to the original (true) author and let him/her take legal actions from there.

[tsian]

I would ban/warn/do something to the user depending on the circumstance. Legal action, in most cases, would be overkill and/or not a realistically viable reaction.