Plagiarism, Reactions, and In My Mailbox

I've liked participating in the In My Mailbox meme for the simple fact that I get to tell you guys all about the books I'm excited to have gotten over the week. But a couple of things lately have me rethinking my participation.

The big one, of course, is the plagiarism accusations and scandal levied at The Story Siren blog, which hosts In My Mailbox. Cuddlebuggery has dubbed this "Sirengate" and has an excellent explanation of why it matters and why this is a big deal to the blogging community. In my earlier post on the plagiarism, I stated that due to Kristi's second, much clearer and more heartfelt apology, I stated that I would have no problem continuing to participate in the IMM meme. However since then, having seen the extreme reactions to this incident, I've rethought my position and my actions. Most of the book blogging community seems to be divided into two very different, very extreme camps. There are those who are going after Kristi (The Story Siren), deriding not only her plagiarism but also her reviews, other posts, and her general demeanor. There's a feeling of jealousy or at least comeuppance, in all of that. And then on the other side there are plenty of bloggers and readers who are treating what she did extremely lightly, pointing out that everyone makes mistakes, praising her for her apology, and saying that they will continue to support her as they always have.

Both of these positions make me feel just the slightest bit sad at the blogging community. To quote from Cuddlebuggery's post:

It's very likely that Kristi from The Story Siren will never truly receive any comeuppance for her theft. I would probably bet that, ultimately, she will continue to grow and prosper. The moral high ground is not as high as it was before this scandal. While the majority of bloggers will continue to agree that plagiarism is wrong, the severity of the social stigma has officially waned for us.

Their entire post is wonderful and well worth reading as they bring out lots of necessary points.

In light of all of this, and also the fact that by tweeting and blogging about "Sirengate" I've sort of opened myself up as a public voice about it, I feel the need to clarify just where I stand and what my actions will be going forward.

First of all, the fact that this wasn't a straight-up copy-and-paste case of plagiarism, as well as the fact that the topics of the blog posts lend themselves to similarity anyway, makes the whole thing less black-and-white than many would like to think. However, I did read the original posts and the screenshots of Kristi's posts and in my opinion it's obvious that while she didn't steal the words, she did steal the content -- almost as if she used their posts as a template or outline for what she wrote. If Kristi had linked back to the original blogs, stating them as inspiration, or better yet asked the bloggers if she could use them, this would be a completely different story for me. But yes, what she did was plagiarism.

I accept Kristi's second apology. Not because it was a super-great apology or anything, but because I think she honestly is regretful of what she did and how it has impacted the blogging community at large. However, apology or not, damage has been done, and a good amount of it. The fact that she probably won't be as tarnished by this as much of the blogging community will be (not only the collective reputation hurt by what she did, but also and especially by how we have reacted to it) worries me. It's not just one post she plagiarized, but six posts, and the fact that it was so much seems to be a little overloooked here. This was not a one-time occurrence: she stole content from multiple websites, for multiple posts -- it was ongoing plagiarism.

I feel the need to take some sort of stand, not against Kristi, but against what she did, how it was handled, and how the blogging community has reacted to it. This is the reason for my posts on the subject and this is (part of) the reason that I've rethought my personal participation in IMM. The other reason is that while most of the books I end up getting are ones I'm really excited about, there are some (sent randomly by publishers) that I don't have much to say about and in some cases might not even read -- often because the books are a genre I don't read/review or for whatever reason the book just doesn't appeal to me. And really what I want to talk about are the books that I'm excited about.

Which brings me to the point this super-long post: I will no longer be doing IMM. Instead I will be doing my own feature, All The Books, where instead of listing the books I've received in the past week I'll talk about the books I got and am excited about, the books I'm planning to read soon, new editions to my wishlist, as well as book deals and covers that I'm excited about. So as the title says, any book-related excitement that I'd like to share on the blog.

The Story Siren & Plagiarism Post

Thinking about writing this post makes my stomach hurt. The things I found out yesterday morning have me sad and angry, but this is one case where -- drama or not -- I feel like I should talk about what's happening because even though I'm not directly involved, I do feel that as a YA blogger it affects many of us. A quick summary, for those of you who may be out of the loop:

Back in January, a couple of fashion bloggers noticed that a YA book blogger who had been visiting their site had quite a few posts that were remarkably similar to their own. Most of these posts were in the vein of blogging self-help stuff, like the importance of Klout and other helpful-to-bloggers posts. They contacted the blogger (Kristi, from The Story Siren) and the issue was handled privately. They didn't feel, for whatever reason, a need to make it public. Which is fine and was probably the right way to handle it at the time.

But now the blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books has gotten the story and they are making it public, which I'm glad about. They have a fantastic post with a round up of relevant posts. READ IT.

Now, I've gone through and read all of the relevant posts from all bloggers involved, and at first I'll admit that I was... wary. Hesitant. One of the posts that was allegedly stolen is a post on the importance of Klout and, to be honest, many of the similarities I found between Kristi's post and the original post are similarities that I could easy imagine in any helpful post on the topic. They're just the topics that would naturally come up.

But I kept reading. I read about how the plagiarism was discovered, read the original posts and the screen shots of the (now deleted, at the request of the fashion bloggers) the screen shots from The Story Siren's posts. And, you guys, the evidence is... well, it's pretty damning actually. Though the posts aren't word-for-word the same, nearly every point that the fashion bloggers made was reiterated in Kristi's posts, so much so that I sat here shaking my head as I read. It was as if she used their posts as a template to "write" her own posts. And the story of how the theft was discovered is pretty amazing.

There's probably some, thought not much, overlap between the fashion blogging community and the book blogging community. The fact that this didn't come to light for months shows that, I think. And the fact that the fashion bloggers didn't make a bigger deal of it reflects, possibly, the fact that they aren't (or weren't, at least) aware of just how huge Kristi and her site are in the YA/book blogging world.

But as you probably know, The Story Siren is one of -- if not the -- most popular and certainly most respected YA blogs. At this point fellow book bloggers seem to be divided between those who (a) either don't believe Kristi plagiarized or are willing to overlook it, or (b) think what she did was very, very wrong.

Personally, I think ignoring the issue or saying that it's okay is a mistake. I'm definitely not advocating any sort of bullying or "mob mentality," but ignoring the issue, thinking that it's okay because it's been resolved between Kristi and the fashion bloggers, is wrong on a couple of different levels. It's a sort of quiet compliance with content-stealing. We're saying it's okay for one of the most respected creative blogs out there to be, at least partially, built on posts that were stolen from others. I think it's a huge conflict of interest for readers and authors to support a blogger who has spoken out against plagiarism while at the same time stealing content from others. I don't like to think that this sort of conduct is okay because the blogger in question is "popular" or "nice" or "has a big following." It breaks all kinds of blogging and writing ethics and honestly, it feels like a betrayal of not only those bloggers who look up to her as an example of what to do, but also (and more importantly) the many readers, authors, and publishers who support her blog in one way or another.

I'm not sure what happens from here. As of now, Kristi has made a statement regarding the entire debacle, but honestly it's so vague and non-commital that it doesn't seem to be much of an apology or an explanation. As a fellow book blogger what I was really hoping for was either an admission or denial, as well as a real explanation of how this came to be. You can read her statement here. As for me, I'm no longer going to be reading her blog or linking to her posts from my own blog as I've done occasionally in the past. In My Mailbox is one of my favorite community memes (hosted by The Story Siren), but I'm going to have to do some thinking on whether or not to even continue taking part in that. I do think everyone concerned or interested in this should look at the posts and decide for themselves whether the content is too similar to just be coincidence. (And once again, a link to the Smart Bitches post that has links to the other relevant posts, and then Kristi's statement.) (If you want the opinion of another blogger, WORD for Teens has a nice post up, and this post from Dear Author is well worth reading.)

ETA: Kristi has since posted a much better apology in which she admits what happened and clarifies her earlier apology -- I now have no problem continuing to participate in IMM though I still don't feel quite right about reading/linking to her blog in the future. It may not be fair, but in my opinion a certain amount of damage has already been done and can't quite be un-done.