IGN Pulls Ex-Editor's Posts After Dozens More Plagiarism Accusations Surface (kotaku.com) 88
An anonymous reader shares a report: The gaming site IGN is working to remove all of the posts written by former editor Filip Miucin, who was fired two weeks ago for plagiarism, after internet sleuths found that dozens of his articles and videos copied or rephrased from other websites without attribution. "We've seen enough now, both from the thread and our own searches, that we're taking down pretty much everything he did," IGN reviews editor Dan Stapleton wrote on Twitter last night, referring to a thread on the gaming forum ResetEra cataloging the allegations. For days, people had pointed out more similarities between Miucin's work and various other articles and message board posts.
The plan, IGN editors said, is to scrutinize all of the work Miucin has published since the site hired him last October, then figure out what can be restored. IGN's editors also said they hope to re-review the games he reviewed, including ports of Doom and Skyrim on Switch, both which have been replaced by the same message: "This article has been removed due to concerns over similarities to work by other authors. The author of this article is no longer employed by IGN." In the recent days, Miucin has been accused of copying a Bayonetta 2 review from Polygon, copying from a video that took word-for-word from a NeoGAF post, and a number of videos in which Miucin read excerpts from Wikipedia about topics like Super Mario Odyssey and Shantae: Half-Genie Hero as if he had written them. The list even includes an Octopath Traveler article that copied from one of his own IGN colleague's reviews, much to that writer's dismay. Even his Linkedin resume is copied from a job template website, Kotaku reported.
The plan, IGN editors said, is to scrutinize all of the work Miucin has published since the site hired him last October, then figure out what can be restored. IGN's editors also said they hope to re-review the games he reviewed, including ports of Doom and Skyrim on Switch, both which have been replaced by the same message: "This article has been removed due to concerns over similarities to work by other authors. The author of this article is no longer employed by IGN." In the recent days, Miucin has been accused of copying a Bayonetta 2 review from Polygon, copying from a video that took word-for-word from a NeoGAF post, and a number of videos in which Miucin read excerpts from Wikipedia about topics like Super Mario Odyssey and Shantae: Half-Genie Hero as if he had written them. The list even includes an Octopath Traveler article that copied from one of his own IGN colleague's reviews, much to that writer's dismay. Even his Linkedin resume is copied from a job template website, Kotaku reported.
Re: (Score:1)
Did he ever apologize? (Score:1)
Not that it'll be worth much, I bet he plagiarised that too.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Did he ever apologize? (Score:4, Funny)
Not that it'll be worth much, I bet he plagiarised that too..
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Keep it up (Score:1)
Maybe next people can stop paying CinemaSins ten thousand dollars a day to read through a movie's TVTropes listing in chronological order.
Re: (Score:3)
Being that they fired him, and have the big process of redacting his previous stuff, seems like journalistic integrity to me.
They could had quietly let him go. Or just put him in something where he wasn't visible anymore. Heck they could had done nothing.
Because to the general public plagiarism isn't that big of a deal.
I was more surprised that IGN has so much good will built up in integrity that they felt they needed to go full force against this guy.
That said, your job is to play video games then write
Re:That's odd (Score:5, Insightful)
Because IGN didn't double down by attacking those who made the accusations of plagiarism, and didn't launch a media campaign attacking gamers.
Pretty cut and dried, IGN dealt with it swiftly and correctly.
He Already Knows GG Discussed the Scandal (Score:2)
This story has been making the rounds on Twitter and other social media sites for a few weeks now, yet for some reason all the Gamergate assholes have been quiet and aren't 'discussing' integrity in games journalism through threats of raping and murdering the journalist in question. I wonder why that is /s
Because IGN didn't double down by attacking those who made the accusations of plagiarism, and didn't launch a media campaign attacking gamers. Pretty cut and dried, IGN dealt with it swiftly and correctly.
You're correct, of course. It was the "Gamers Are Over/Dead" articles on August 28th, 2014 that really gave Gamergate momentum.
But save your breath anyway; the parent poster is lying through his teeth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
This scandal was covered early on in multiple posts on r/KotakuInAction, the main GG subreddit.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Because IGN did something about it and fired him?
If he were a woman, we'd be hearing about how it was the mean gamers ganging up on her and making wild accusations, about how calling out journalistic lapses is really gamers displaying their blatant sexism. But because he's a man, they're taking it seriously and he's facing consequences.
Re: (Score:3)
Being that there were facts to back up their firing. I don't think if it was a women it would had reach the discrimination card. The discrimination card is more often used when they are fired for things that are not so well documented. Such as couldn't fit in company culture, or change in in business practices.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you followed the whole Arenanet thing? The fired female writer's sexism and vitriol towards fans was well documented. Yet all the usual suspects still played the discrimination card as hard as they could. Not to mention the New York Times recent hire who is unambiguously and openly racist and they still twisted her as the discriminated victim.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean the woman who was sarcastically replying to vitriol that was thrown at her?
Nope. The racist hire was not replying to anybody. She was just "virtue" signaling her hatred of white people, unprompted.
You're not really that dumb to see the whole picture here right?
You're so dumb you bought the excuse given by the New York Times?
not very intelligent (Score:5, Insightful)
Also his name is tarnished forever. I don't think he'll easily find another job
Re:not very intelligent (Score:5, Informative)
For the most part, he didn't copy from articles. He copied from YouTube videos. That's how he got away with it for so long.
Re: (Score:1)
This isn't about laziness...it's about Olympic class, gold medal winne
Re: (Score:1)
Like this?
"Could it be that difficult to just get the first copy, replace a few terms, and basically rephrase the entire thing? If we were intending to steal someone else's work and offer it up as mine, it wouldn't take more than a few minutes of changing words here and there and shuffling the sentences up, basically its fool proof. It's immoral as heck but gee whiz, it's not difficult at all."
Re: (Score:1)
However, apparently this guy made a habit of being coincidental pretty regularly...to the point that once you knew to look for it, it was obvious he was plagiarizing other people's words and presenting them as his own.
Re: (Score:2)
He broke the basic rule: if you steal from one source (at a time) it's plagiarism. If you steal from three or more at once, it's research.
Re: (Score:2)
Why do we even need to do that? Is it not possible for two people to come up with the same phrase independently?
Yes, it is possible. But it is very unlikely when you are going to write about something and your content is ALL similar to someone else who has already published a couple days before you did. And with this guy, it is not the first time but there are many other occurrences. How unlikely the guy didn't listen/read someone else reviews before he wrote his? Please tell me.
Why does person A. suddenly get to claim ownership?
It is copyright. In literature world, everyone will copy someone who is famous. As a result, you will end up not being able to find the orig
Re:not very intelligent (Score:5, Interesting)
Plagiarism is actually rampant on YouTube as well, and not just for game reviews. It's not uncommon for people to simple re-make other people's videos and hope they won't notice. Even worse some will see other channels talking about up-coming videos on Twitter and rush out their own version first.
Sometimes even whole channels get cloned. When the Hydraulic Press Channel became popular within a couple of days several clones appeared. Fortunately the original was able to survive by branching out into stuff other than just crushing things, amusing as that is.
Re: (Score:2)
They are very dangerous and could attack at any time, so we have to deal with them.
Re: (Score:2)
The Hydraulic Press Channel is also assisted by the fact that native English speakers get a lot of amusement out of listening to Lauri and Anni speaking English. They comprehend it just fine, which is why we understand them, but their accents will never stop being cute.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think he'll easily find another job
Being that his job was to play video games and tell people what he thinks about it, then tried to cheat at that. He seems the looser of loosers.
Re: (Score:2)
If he's the looser or loosers, he could probably get a job in an old-folks home opening jar lids for them.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think he'll easily find another job
Being that his job was to play video games and tell people what he thinks about it, then tried to cheat at that. He seems the looser of loosers.
looser of loosers.
The grammar irony is strong with this one.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. But look how long he got away with it. There is a lot of "stupid" in the picture that is not his.
Sleuths? (Score:2)
after internet sleuths found that dozens of his articles and videos copied or rephrased from other websites without attribution.
Sleuths? They just googled, right?
"And I would have got away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids and your Google!"
But did you also know that... (Score:4, Funny)
Miucin has also been accused of copying a Bayonetta 2 review from Polygon, copying from a video that took word-for-word from a NeoGAF post, and a number of videos in which Miucin read excerpts from Wikipedia about topics like Super Mario Odyssey and Shantae: Half-Genie Hero as if he had written them. The list even includes an Octopath Traveler article that copied from one of his own IGN colleague's reviews, much to that writer's dismay. Even his Linkedin resume is copied from a job template website, Kotaku reported.
Re: (Score:3)
No, but I heard that some people have claimed Miucin copied a Polygon review of Bayonetta 2. He apparently also quoted (without attribution) word-for-word from a NeoGAF video, as well as posted a bunch of videos himself where he just read bits and pieces of Wikipedia articles on Shantae: Half-Genie and Super Mario Odyssey aloud. He even went so far as to copy an article from an IGN colleague on Octopath Traveler, to that writer's great dismay. His LinkedIn article is no better as it seems to be copied from
Russian operative (Score:2)
Did this guy ever exist? Resume copied, works copied, employment history?
Dunno - maybe he's just a secret agent.
funny thing (Score:1)
My dismay. (Score:2)
It will be all copied (Score:2)
Somebody like that does not copy because he is lazy. Somebody like that copies because he is incapable of producing good content himself. Hence everything he ever did will be copied. Classical parasitic personality that got away with it for far too long. One has to ask though why IGN failed to notice this before hiring him.
What I find strange about this whole incident (Score:1)
Filip Miucin was running the NVC Nintendo Voice Chat podcast for a few months or so, and he was doing a damn fine job. Right when he took over, the podcast in my opinion saw great improvement. They stayed on topic more, with a tighter, content packed podcast and no filler. They also had several great discussions on all things Nintendo. Just by hearing the guy talk I could tell this guy knows his shit. To blow such a cushy job with this silliness when he was clearly capable blows my mind. I actually do
Re: (Score:2)
But does he really know his shit, or did he just find a podcast somewhere and copy that?
This stigma is going to stick with him for a long time, and outside of self-employment I don't think the man will find work as a creative again. The internet remembers.
His resumé (Score:2)
Work smart but honest (Score:1)