Subject: Cool
Author:
Posted on: 2012-03-21 23:07:00 UTC
Cool
Subject: Cool
Author:
Posted on: 2012-03-21 23:07:00 UTC
Cool
After ealising it's probably best to do an ORIGINAL work when trying to get Permission, I've decided to clear the water, bury the hatchet, etc.
Where can I fix what has previously gone wrong? You know, get a third (Is that even allowed?) attempt pitch-perfect, all in-tune, you know?
What I'm trying to say without Purple Prose is- from the Second attempt's charcters, what can be doen to ensure that the third attempt works?
And if it fails, and I'm denied for the characters/the sample/both, I'll suck it up, and leave the attempts thing behind- I'll read the missions, but I'll drop the "Join the PPC" thing.
VM said why you haven't gotten permission and how can can get permission, but I have some further concerns.
While you are trying to meet the various 'steps' you aren't really encouraging us to give you permission.
Your initial permission showed little apparent effort to it. The writing- spelling and grammar- was sloppy, and you used shortcuts to make and tell us about your characters rather than show us. (I also looked back, checked and discovered that your writing sample there that 'parodies' a RvB PSA was also plagiarism.) You even figured it was likely to fail. While it might not have been your intent, it can look like you were figuring that would excuse the slack standards you held yourself to for that writing sample and the characters. Expecting failure doesn't really impress or put confidence into others in your work or yourself, especially when it is what you gave us.
Your second permission attempt didn't really show much thought put into what you were presenting either. Again, it was a plagiarized piece, for the writing sample, and your characters went in concerning ways; as Neshomeh noted they're more interested in insulting and making cruel comments than in actually doing anything for canon, and your writing was also dismissive of both canon and of your readers. Beyond that, there's also the item I had mentioned there, with regards to one of your agents having Lust Objects that are both very young in comparison to his given age. That, as I mentioned, can be creepy- it's also something that can be discomforting to some people.
When people brought up that it was plagiarized, you basically waved it off, giving an incorrect definition. While you might not have understood the meaning of 'plagiarization', learning to not copy the works of others and passing it off as your own- especially in terms of creative works- is something that everyone learns early in school and has drummed into their heads throughout their education. As I said in this thread already, dismissing that isn't impressive, and when you treat it as being alarmist, that's also not something that encourages us- as Permission Givers- to consider giving you permission, even in the future.
Being sound technically doesn't mean you'll be granted permission. We care about the PPC canon as it is; about our reputations as writers- plagiarism is a huge deal. Putting no effort or care into your works is, too. We care about what we write. We care about not being bullies. Our reputuation is important to us; when you write something that is actually bad, or is plagiarized, it reflects badly upon all of us.
So far your attempts have been contradictory to most of those points. No or little effort, cribbing, outright mean comments. These are things that are important, too. These are things that I take into consideration, as do others. And it's also something we consider for later attempts.
While VM's response was technically correct, I'm going to put it straight to the point: Our constitution very explicitly states we do not approve of plagiarists. A lot of the stuff you've done for your attempts doesn't secure in our minds that you're someone who'll not plagiarize again, and that you won't go for mean, low effort missions.
Show us that you're making moves to improve your writing and actually working care and effort into it. Chat on the board, in the chatroom. Do things that are actually community-building.
While I can't order or demand you to do anything, I heavily suggest that you hold off on asking for permission again until you're able to do that sort of thing and it doesn't raise suspicions on our parts.
The first attemot was made in five minutes, and if I could, I'd go back and kill myself for posting it, space-time laws be damned.
The thing no-one talks about for the second one? The Agents themselves. Well, except for your comment, but that problem has been fixed- he's got Lust Objects closer to his age, and his sexuality has been changed to fit his description more.
I do care abut my writing- this PSA? The one time I slipped up bad. The sample I've prepped will be different, mark my words.
But look, I do understand reputation is important, and I steppped on a big landmine, let it go click, then took my foot off of it just to see what'd happen. I'm not a bad person, I'm not trying to take the piss our of the PPC in my work, and I sincerely promise to never bring any kind of copied work to the table here ever again.
Also, I shook off the plagarism thing to just try and forget about it- I screwed up, no need to keep hammering on and on about it- I think I got it with the first five people who said the same things.
First off, you have joined the PPC. You're in. You're One of Us. You post on the 'Board and you talk to people and join conversations, ergo you are a PPCer.
Now, as to your actual question, how to get permission... that's a bit trickier. I'm trying to remember what the issues were with your previous attempts, and the first thing that comes to mind is that you didn't wait very long at all between them. Give it some time - do some reading, some thinking, some drawing-board-time, and, very importantly, send your stuff to betas for review. I can't recommend that enough - it is very, very important that you get your stuff proofread and beta'd.
There's no limit to the amount of times you apply for Permission, but if you keep throwing yourself against the door every week or so, you're going to more annoy people than increase your chance of a positive response.
Just... proofread your stuff. Submit an original writing sample that you've taken good care of (because we'll expect you to be taking good care of all your writings), and look around for agents that work. There's no Winning Formula-- just do your best, and the key to that is making sure it is your best. As in, you've worked hard and spent time on it, and cared about the quality enough to put it through the ringer of editing.
Well, the main concerns for Round 1 were gotten rid of in Round 2, which caused... problems (Among which, cries of "Plagarism2 spread across the land). It's all fixed up, ready to go with an Original sample.
Thanks anyway for talking to me!
I don't have a Beta... No one's ever brought up the subject around me.
We take plagiarism seriously, thus why you were called out on it more than once, and why people corrected you when you said your writing sample was not plagiarism.
Please do not wave allegations in regards to it off like that.
Hmm, that explains why no-one seemed to listen when I insisted that my disclaimers covered every single angle.
Don't worry, it's not gonna happen for this one- by the way, do the samples have to be part of the post, or can we post links?
Before I say anything else, let me just say this...
Cut it out. I defer to much of what VM said in her recent post about how disclaimers don't exactly cover that, especially when you're copying entire things of better, more well known series.
Now, here's the thing that bugs me about this only slightly less than the fact that it's plagiarism:
You say that it's a parody of something from a different source material. But here's the thing: simply transcribing things doesn't make it funny. There has to be a spin on it that you add that pokes fun at how the source material uses it. From what I've heard around here, there's nothing of the sort in either of your writing samples.
So let's dispell this notion that you have that you're parodying something here, because when we get to the nitty gritty of it, you're really not parodying anything at all. The context apparently was only changed superficially: for a "parody" to work, it needs to involve more than that. I may point out that this kind of 'I'm copying something directly, look, laugh at it' is one part of the biggest mistake that Seltzerberg movies frequently make. The pop culture references that are littered throughout those movies are incredibly unfunny for the reason I just mentioned above, and simply copying and pasting something for the sake of "parody" is both incredibly lazy and not cool.
*groan*
Honestly, GR? I have to say I'm pretty disappointed in you. I take you for a rather reasonable guy most of the time: the fact that you're brushing off the fact that you've plagiarized something doesn't sit well with me.
I find it especially alarming that you're brushing off these concerns of plagiarism, since you were pretty vocal about how angry you were about an entirely different case of plagiarism elsewhere. The fact that you got mad about the plagiarized Assassin's Creed/Mass Effect fanfic I mentioned in one of my DA journals and now the fact that you're plagiarizing Red Vs. Blue...
I hate to say it, but it kind of paints you as a hypocrite.
Yeah, this did suck. Bad. The number of people who are reacting like you is not a small number.
Look, that's not a highlight, and I really should paraphrase- I meant in the original part of this post, "What could be done better in a third attempt compared to the other two?"
That fact that there's had to be at least two before I finally realised I was doing something wrong... I'd rather not dwell on it.
And I have also realised- it's not a parody if you don't add stuff to it. That's probab;ly the main reason why I've gotten so good at being a First-Person Smartass when naratting.
Thanks for stopping by. And sorry for being an asshole.
(Yes, you are allowed to use a link to get to the writing sample.) There are other issues, which were mainly covered in the responses to your application directly - mainly, your writing samples, to be honest, looked slap-dash, hasty, and sloppy. As Neshomeh pointed out, your piece mostly consisted of a few characters being crude and insulting - and your dialogue was plagiarized. There were also July's concerns about your agents. But what I'd like to focus on, what I feel you really are not grasping the depth of, is the plagiarism aspect.
Putting up a disclaimer does not change the facts. Plagiarism is plagiarism. A disclaimer can 'cover' things like "I took a few story elements from this 'fic," or "This was inspired by an AU that started with the same idea," or the like.
For example, the following is acceptable: I got the idea for this story from "Patching Through," by Snarksaysgo, but it goes in a different direction, as I have a different take on the characters.
This is what you wrote for your first writing sample: Here's an expert from a Glee fanfic I made that parodies a Red vs Blue PSA: You didn't parody the episode. You wrote something directly transcribing the dialogue (or copy-pasted it from a transcript) and put it in your own characters' mouths. That's plagiarism. The disclaimer cannot cover it, because there is no way to cover "I copy-pasted the majority of this text from someone else's stuff."
Then you did the same thing with your second writing sample. Your disclaimer there might be more clear: "with yet another PSA from the minds at Rooster Teeth." But again, what you need to say is "All the dialogue in this writing sample is directly taken from Rooster Teeth." Which makes it plagiarism. Which is wrong. You're not adapting parts of a story, you're facelifting it and changing the names of the speaking characters. That's not fanfic, it's not good writing, and, again, it's plagiarism.
You're sort of acting like nothing is wrong, or brushing off concerns, which is not exactly reassuring to those of us you're asking for permission. Please try to look at this from our point of view - you posted a copy-pasted 'parody,' didn't get called on that aspect of it, and then did the same thing again, and did. When people told you it was plagiarism, you insisted that it wasn't, and never really backed down or apologized. As a permission giver, this does not exactly fill me with confidence that you won't do the same thing with your PPC agents.
Thanks for confirming the link thing, before anything else.
I get it, I get it- three people making the same noise from the album I purchased and listened to like it was a Bible.
I heard you last time, I hear you now- It. Was. Plagarism. I get that, and that we've got that out of the frickin' minefield, can you please tell me the purpose of this post, which is how. The ..., can I improve for the possibly most likely to fail third attempt?
I'm not acting like anything is wrong, by the way.
*Sighs*
Long day...
Look, sorry for snapping, but I've been told multiple times, "Plagarism." I read it, you probably read it, there's gonna be something original, and the characters are fixed, what little people looked at that.
Really, anyone can be a Beta-reader for you. Just post a message on the board saying "Hey, can anyone Beta this please?" and someone will see it and say "I sure can!". And then we have a party. With some cake.
No, but really, many many people are willing to Beta.