www.whyville.net Jun 13, 2010 Weekly Issue



Ducky464
Guest Writer

Remaking Outrage

Users' Rating
Rate this article
 
FRONT PAGE
CREATIVE WRITING
SCIENCE
HOT TOPICS
POLITICS
HEALTH
PANDEMIC

As many of you know, I recently began writing designing articles for the Whyville Times. I thought it would be a wonderful idea to inspire many readers to make original face parts. I guess there is an issue that needs to be covered and/or drawn to everyone's attention before I can give further advice on how to design and get your creations known to Whyvillians. Lately, there is a problem that is lurking around in the Face Factory and revealing itself to all of Whyville once it hits the new arrivals . . . Remaking.

Remaking and pixeling fall hand in hand. Basically, remaking is taking somebody else's lovely face part, and recreating it. Some people do it in the same colors, while other people remake things in different colors. Regardless of the color, remaking is still wrong. Why? Let's dive into this issue even more.

Plagiarism

Everybody knows that plagiarism is copying someone's work, but not giving him/her credit for it. Plagiarism is a BIG no no! In the real world, you can get into a lot of trouble for it. If you plagiarize in high school it may go down on your permanent record as Academic Dishonesty. If you plagiarize in college . . . they won't deal with you. They will fail you, and sometimes even kick you out. If you do it in your career, you're fired. It's a bad thing. So why should it be any different on a website?

We are going to play pretend for a moment, okay? You are about to enter a writing contest. You KNOW you have what it takes to win. What's the prize? Well, the prize is $1,000 cash. You get all excited about it, but you really want to win so you have your best friend read over your story before you submit it in the contest. Your friend decides that she wants the money, so she goes behind your back and turns YOUR story in as her own before you even get the chance to submit it. Once you go to turn it in, they decline you saying that you tried to copy somebody else's work. So what's the worst part? Your best friend wins and gets $1,000, and when you try to tell people that the story isn't hers . . . nobody believes you.

Plagiarism can count for many things. Whyville is NO different. Art can be stolen, and that is exactly what is happening. People are remaking designs left and right. The sad part: the real designers are not receiving the credit for their work. Think about every designer who does not remake. Now think about all of the people who are remaking their stuff. Put yourself in the original designer's shoes for a minute. If you tried really hard to make a design . . . wouldn't you be upset if someone remade it and got all the credit?

Programs

Want to know what makes me even more livid? The people who are remaking face parts are not putting work into it. They download programs that pixel the face parts for them in the face factory. It's terrible. Why? Think about all of the time original designers spend creating a face part. Some people take 30 minutes, while others take up to two hours to make one design. When people come along with a program, it takes them less than five minutes to remake something that somebody else ALREADY made.

It's infuriating knowing that these remakers put little effort into such a thing. They aren't even getting punished for it, and nothing has been done to stop the use of these terrible programs.

I am not writing this article to create a lot of conflict. I am writing this article, as a designer, to let you guys know how I feel. I have spent a lot of time making my designs, and now I see that it has all gone to waste since people just remake it all with no effort. The remakers want fame and fortune, and that is what they are getting. They aren't earning it the fair way, though.

My main reason for writing this is to draw the problem to everybody's attention. Plagiarism is WRONG. As I previously stated, it can get you into a lot of trouble in the real world. If Whyville is an educational website, they need to enforce the plagiarism rule and teach everyone not to plagiarize. They no longer let us create elmo, pooh, piglet, spongebob, etc. in the face factory because of it's copyright, so why would they forget about all the people who spent time to make original things?

Have opinions? Share them in the BBS. Please be respectful, for I am not intending to create fights in the BBS. I just want to make everybody realize how terrible remaking and plagiarism truly is.

I would like to thank everybody who has been supportive of this issue.

 

Did you like this article?
1 Star = Bleh.5 Stars = Props!
Rate it!
Ymail this article to a friend.
Discuss this article in the Forums.

  Back to front page


times@whyville.net
11347