Plagiarism has been in the news in New Zealand but I didn’t think it would be an issue on my blog.
Ideas for posts arise from a variety of sources. Sometimes I get stuck at work and blog about the solution, often found with the help of other blogs. Maybe I just stumble upon something cool while browsing or have a process I think may help others. When I refer to other blogs it’s generally with a link, short quote and my spin on the topic. I try to be fair about attribution but recently published a post very similar to another with no attribution at all.
Last week I was searching for an old blog post to resolve a technical problem. When reading blogs I capture links I think may be useful in MindManager map, and I blogged about that. Because I often “write ahead”, setting posts to publish days/weeks ahead, you saw it appear on Monday (09 November 2009):
Last night I was researching an upcoming talk about social media. Over the years I’ve filed quite a few blogging/business related posts in the Weblogs Category here. Scrolling down the list I found a post from way back in October 2007 that seemed quite familiar:
Remember that great blog post? Can you find it again? MindManager to the rescue...
The topic was the same, with similar screenshots and content even though both were created independently. Even worse the wonderful Linkwithin, “You might also like”, widget found it too, adding a link back from the newer post.
It’s not really Plagiarism when you copy your own work, maybe it’s just Alzheimer's!