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Comment by adnam | Hacker News Reader

I disagree: the embarrassment of being publicly outed is entirely justified for a plagiarist. It's not a lynching if you tied your own noose!

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maybe announcing it to the rest of his class would be a justified "public outting." or announcing it in a campus publication. but this goes way, way beyond that.

i think it's kind of scary how quick people are nowadays to froth at the mouth and go crazy with the big-scale internet public shaming. one of the downsides of the rise of social-media, i guess

Are you being serious? That's just a slap on the wrist, for what appears to be academic fraud.

I would cancel his degree and send a notice to his current employers.

Plagiarism is sometimes punished with the academic death penalty. If you were a journalist who plagiarized in the last 10 years then your career is over.

@ InclinedPlane 3:

so would i.

i was just pointing out that there are different degrees of public outing. revoking his degree, getting him fired, and ruining his reputation with hsi colleagues is sufficient...no need to make him an international internet villain

I don't know about you, but getting fired and having my professional reputation ruined is a fair bit worse than being an "internet villain".

Ever heard of benefit of the doubt, or extenuating circumstances?

Ok, we know the guy cheated on this paper.

There's a whole lot we don't know though: who is this guy? what led to the cheating? was it his first offense? is this paper really relevant to his professional career? was he looking to profit from it?

Many more things we don't know and for which it's usually better to handle such things away from the Internet.

Don't steal other people's work.

There is no legitimate reason to do so. EVER.

For one, I'm not excusing the crime, I'm merely stating that the punishment should fit. Secondly, you sound pretty adamant in your declaration. You know, having had my share of experience with the human element, I'm sometimes curious with the attitude of the morally superior people who can't see shades of gray and are so willing to cast the first stone. I wonder what we would uncover if we were to put their own lives under the magnifier.

>I wonder what we would uncover if we were to put their own lives under the magnifier.

I'm unclear as to what this has to do with the fact that plagiarism is always wrong, 100% of the time. Just because one may be guilty of doing something they know is wrong doesn't mean their declaration of that action being wrong is somehow invalid.

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