Conference 7.286::digital

    re: .0 What you describe is blatant plagiarism, and that is covered
    under Digital's policy of ethical business behavior: no one else
    should use your words without attributing them to you. 
    
    There are times when you would like to request anonymity, but that's
    another story! :-)

    He who steals my text, plagerizes my spelling too!
    
    :-)
        
    	RMM
    

    If your material is identified as being authored by someone other
    than yourself, I think that's plagarism regardless of the medium
    used.
    
    Informal practice for these sorts of problems is to contact the
    person and determine, for example, if it was an honest mistake,
    and what retraction or apology is acceptable to you.
    
    If that fails, tell your manager and that you are persuing it up
    the management chain of the other person.
    
    Keep all communication in writing and involve the lowest level of
    management possible before escalating to higher levels of management.

Re:  < Note 578.0 by TAVIS::GERSHON >

Are you talking about (a) people stealing your ideas and passing
them off as their own, or (b) people using your words (edited or unedited)
against you or in a way you don't approve of?

If you're talking about (a), it's clearly dishonest and should be fairly easy
to prove. The culprit will probably have a hard time avoiding some kind of
reprimand or punishment.  I also suspect that (a) happens very rarely.

On the other hand, (b) covers a lot more possibilities, where "right" and
"wrong" can be ambiguous. I suspect it happens a lot more often than (a).
Some possible examples:

1. You send mail (electronic) to A saying Manager B is a jerk. A forwards
your mail to B (or to others, and word eventually gets back to B).

2. In the heat of anger, you send mail to A telling him he's a jerk. 
You cool down and want to apologize, but meanwhile A has forwarded your mail
to your manager, his manager, or some distribution list (saying, in effect,
"just look at what this Gershon said!")

3. You send mail to A dealing with some issue. Your mail deals with pros and
cons of several alternatives; however, A forwards excerpts of your message,
indicating deletions with ellipses (...), but including only those parts 
supporting his own views.

In these cases and others falling under (b), depending on the specifics of
the case, some Company policies might apply, and some general principles
of etiquette and personal maturity might apply. Maybe a good "lesson,"
though, is to think twice before sending any message of any consequence,
since it could end up getting forwarded almost anywhere.

- Chuck (who has sent a few mail messages he wishes he could have taken
  back in his 10+ years with DEC)

    Chuck,
    	In this case it was a complicated question passed on to a group
    hoping for an answer. Someone in the qroup changed the signed name 
    and passed it on further in his name. He later claimed that since
    he is in charge of this particular subject he is can do as he pleases.
    
    
    	At first writting this note I thought it was enough a general
    question & answer. But since you asked, this is more specific. 
    
    
         
    

Re .5:  Thanks.  In that case, it seems to me the person doing
the forwarding was dishonest, or at least inconsiderate and
arrogant. 

I'm in the VAX Rdb/VMS documentation group. If someone sent me
mail raising a complicated Rdb/VMS product issue, and if I felt
someone else (the product manager, for instance) was better able
to answer it, I would probably simply forward the message with
a "subject" line like "Can you help this person?"  As an 
alternative, I might paraphrase the original message and send
the product manager mail, but state in my message that I 
received mail on the following issue from someone in the xyz group
(or give the person's name) and could you please help out.

Under no circumstances, though, would I take the original
message and send it to the product manager making it appear
that these were my own brilliant insights and questions.

    DEC HAS VERY DEFINITE SECURITY POLICIES REGARDING ELECTRONIC MAIL
    AND REGULAR MAIL.  CONTACT YOUR INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AREA IN YOUR
    PLANT AND ASK FOR THE SYSTEMS SECURITY MANAGER AND THEY WILL INFORM
    YOU AND ADVISE YOU WITH REGARD TO POLICY.
    
    JOANN IN PHOENIX

        JoAnn, I don't think this is a "security" issue, but rather
        a question of whether it's good business practice for someone
        to claim someone else's work as their own.  Involving either
        the "information management" or "systems security" people in
        such a matter, where the information was originally sent by
        the author to the person who subsequently represented it as
        his or her own, will only create additional problems.
        
        If you've got an electronic copy of the original message that
        you sent, and it's clear that it pre-dates the subsequent use
        by the intermediate party, and your manager supports you, then
        you probably should contact the manager of the person who used
        your work as his or her own, if only so that the manager knows
        the working style of that employee.  If the facts are as you
        have represented them (obviously, we haven't heard from the
        other party involved), then it's a pretty clear case of claiming
        credit for something you haven't done.
        
        Tom

    It was blatant plagiarism! It was not acceptable!
    
    Yes, a manager can try to take credit for something that his people
    did. He may even get away with it. For a while. 
    
    On the other hand, there isn't much point in persuing the matter (other
    than for general information on the subject) unless you have not been
    credited with something that is of real significance to you. 

        Tom, your statement

>    Yes, a manager can try to take credit for something that his people
>    did. He may even get away with it. For a while. 

        makes it sound like, in this case, the person's manager was
        the one taking credit for the work.  I didn't get that idea
        when I read the topic note and subsequent replies.  I got the
        impression that it was either a person in a related job in
        the same group, or a person in another group.  In such a case,
        it can be helpful to make sure your manager knows that the
        work in question was your own, not the other person's.
        
        I agree that a manager should not, in general, claim credit
        for the work of an individual in his or her group as if it
        was his or her contribution.  It's reasonable, however, for
        a manager to claim credit for the overall work of the group,
        since it's the manager's job to coordinate the efforts of the
        individual contributors to meet group goals.
        
        Tom

    Yes, I agree with you. I read it wrong the first time.

    This is a direct violation of copyright law -- you prepublished
    the material (in electronic form) and you own the rights to it's
    use, as well as credit.
    
    That's law, and I'm positive legal would back yu up.
    
    However, there's also the problem of ramifications if you act on
    your rights in any particular way.  Law (or ethics) or not -- do
    you want to deal with the grief that SOMEBODY will probably dump
    on you for "not being a team player" or something of that sort?
    
    What they did was unethical, pretentious, and morally wrong.  But
    it's done.  What YOU do impacts more on you than on them, especially
    with the casual way electronic information is treated by most DEC
    employees, rightly or wrongly.  
    
    Sherry

Re .12:

What makes you think that anyone but Digital owns the intellectual property
rights to the material in question?  Isn't it most likely that both parties in
this situation have signed employment agreements?
				/AHM

    	While the other replies have addressed the latter part of .0,
    I just thought I'd go back to the first part, then fill in from
    there.
    
    	For some time now Digital has been adopting ALL-IN-1 Electronic
    Messaging as its standard in-house mail system.  (BTW, please note
    the spelling of the product name -- it *is* a trademark.)  The entire MTS
    system has been converting to ALL-IN-1, and most offices are now
    using ALL-IN-1.  As new mail architectures evolve (e.g., X.400 Mail),
    you will see ALL-IN-1 following those trends, thus keeping our own
    in-house mail current with technology.
    
    	Now, let me address the rest of the question from the technical
    side.  When a user receives mail in ALL-IN-1, it is uneditable.
    Any forwarding or replying is done wholly in the context of that
    user.  (That is, his name remains associated with it.)  There is
    no way, for example, that I can receive mail, and pass it on with
    a changed name (e.g., making it look as though it came from K.O.).
    
    	*However*...  as in any other case, a user can file the text
    of a mail message into a document, cut and past to/from another
    document, and basically do anything they want with the contents
    of the message.  This has essentially *removed* it from the context
    of a mail message, and is dealing strictly with the "verbage".
    I believe that it is at this point that the concepts regarding
    plagiarism in the earlier replies come in.  What that user *does*
    with the information, wording, etc. in that document is now entirely
    up to them.
   
	Frank