Content Creator Responsibility in 2021, featuring ReptiFiles
Content creators are hardworking individuals that often help to provide fresh new takes and understandings of topics. Sometimes as content creators we can get a little ahead of ourselves by focusing too much on certain topics or skipping topics altogether. The rush to make really great content can be overbearing.
Content creators are responsible for attempting to provide accurate information. They are also responsible for providing original work with appropriate attribution and references to borrowed or assembled work.
ReptiFiles is a free resource for people passionate about reptiles — much in the same way Wikipedia is free to use. As we’ll find out ReptiFiles shares quite a lot in common with Wikipedia.
What is Patchwriting?
Patchwriting is a special type of plagiarism that is difficult to catch. It isn’t just cut and pasting without references — it involves intentionally changing the source material in small ways to avoid detection and make the content just different enough to claim to be the original author of it. It is very difficult for automatic anti-plagiarism services to detect this type of copying.
As a silly example let’s use “Mary had a little lamb” as our original work. An author could intentionally copy this sentence but want to deceptively make it appear as though it were original work. In that case the author may write it as “Mary had a small lamb”. As you can see there is very little difference except for a quick edit of a single word.
You can find out more about patchwriting over at Merriam-Webster including a few anecdotes of the punishment for patchwriting in academia.
Patchwriting is plagiarism. Patchwriting would not be tolerated in any capacity of academia, journalism, and professional work.
Patchwriting at ReptiFiles
The excerpt below comes directly from ReptiFiles.com where it appears next to a prominent image of Australia. The image has no attribution or source.
The ackie monitor (also known as ridgetail(ed) monitor, spiny-tailed monitor, or ackies dwarf monitor) is a diurnal, terrestrial monitor lizard native to the west, north, and center of northern Australia, including some islands off the northern coast. They prefer arid and seasonally dry habitats with lots of rocks, boulders, and spinifex grass, and often shelter in crevices between the rocks as well as burrows underneath them.
This excerpt comes from Wikipedia’s entry for Spiny Tailed Monitor with slight modifications to remove links to sources and formatting.
The spiny-tailed monitor (Varanus acanthurus), also known as the Australian spiny-tailed monitor, the ridge-tailed monitor or Ackie’s dwarf monitor, is an Australian species of lizard belonging to the genus of monitor lizards (Varanus).
[ …]
This arid-adapted lizard is found in northern Western Australia, in the Northern Territory and in the eastern and northeastern parts of Queensland.
[…]
This species is most often found in its shelter, mainly under rock slabs, boulders or in rock crevices. Only rarely do they hide in spinifex.
Let’s put them side-by-side to make it even clearer:
ReptiFiles.com
The ackie monitor (also known as ridgetail(ed) monitor, spiny-tailed monitor, or ackies dwarf monitor) …
Wikipedia.com
The spiny-tailed monitor (Varanus acanthurus), also known as the Australian spiny-tailed monitor, the ridge-tailed monitor or Ackie’s dwarf monitor …
The Wikipedia article was updated to its current quoted language in 2013.
Mariah Healey credits herself as the author in the beginning of 2021.
It is extraordinarily unlikely the structure of the topics occurred nearly identically to Wikipedia’s article by coincidence. This is a patchwriting exercise that is a summary of a Wikipedia article in the same order of the Wikipedia article itself.
As for the image accompanying the text it probably isn’t much of a surprise that the same image appears in the Wikipedia article. In fact, the filename of the image includes Wikipedia in its name: https://i2.wp.com/reptifiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Wikipedia-Ackie-Monitor-distribution-map-altered.png
At the time this article was written there was no attribution to Wikipedia or any indication that ReptiFiles content is also free to copy without permissions under CC-BY-SA or other Share Alike terms.
It is very clear that ReptiFiles reproduced copyrighted (yes — Wikipedia is copyrighted) material without any attribution in violation of the usage of that media. The text was only loosely “remixed” (patchwritten). The article and image carry, at minimum, CC-BY-SA and require attribution.
This, of course, is not the only example of patchwriting on ReptiFiles. Most of the site is composed of patchwritten articles with text simply shuffled around from the source, un-credited images, and cut and pasted references added after the article was written (that’s not how references work — that’s backwards).
In a previous article I discussed how ReptiFiles simply cut and pasted resources I provided to her in an email after telling me I had insulted her journalistic integrity. Her integrity only extends to providing credit to people and organizations she deems fit (obviously not including Wikipedia or myself) and plagiarism.
What of the Information Consumers for Reptiles?
ARAV, the Association of Reptile and Amphibian Veterinarians, allows Mariah Healey usage of their logo next to plagiarized content. It is unlikely ARAV proofreads sites that use their logo but their logo is very clearly being leveraged to provide some sort of authority on topics.
Zen Habitats, a company that promotes ethical keeping, appears on ReptiFiles— plagiarism doesn’t feel very ethical. Both Zen Habitats and Custom Reptile Habitats are both listed as sponsors of plagiarism.
Mariah Healey and Liam Sinclair take turns publishing sensationalist claims (such as all reptiles are being irreparably harmed by a lack of UVB) on Facebook while their cut and pasted reference say UV light is deleterious to specific reptiles as well as humans. Plagiarism appears to be of no concern to either individual.
The Advanced Herp Husbandry Facebook Group, as well as the sister group Not Just a Pet Rock, are heavily invested in promoting these plagiarized articles.
The BioDude has apparently been fooled by Wikipedia copies.
Dillon Perron of the Animals At Home Network Podcast brings Mariah Healey on to promote her authority on animal topics. The AAHN Podcast is one of my favorite reptile podcasts — it is extremely disappointing that Dillon Perron also supports plagiarizing Wikipedia.
As long as the sales, likes, and YouTube views remain consistent I believe there is nothing that will be done about the very obvious dishonesty and theft of material.
