Thursday, September 11, 2008

WVHooligan.com Blatantly Plagiarizes Other Soccer Blogs

My Superdraft 2009 preview post has been blatantly ripped off by WVhooligan and its author, Drew Epperley. I also discovered did the exact same thing one month ago when I previously updated it, and also last year for my 2008 preview. And it turns out that I'm not the only site he's been ripping off. Just look:


Climbing the Ladder 9/9 - 2009 MLS Superdraft Order & Picks:

Order is determined as follows: #1-7 go to non-playoff teams, #8-11 go to quarterfinalists, #12-13 go to semifinalists, and #14-15 go to the runner up and winner of MLS Cup 2008. Within each group, teams are ranked based on regular season record. Ties are broken the same way as the regular standings. For this preview, I'm assuming that the higher seeded teams will win each playoff series.


These picks are not included in the above order or the number of picks below. I would imagine the Guevara trade is for a high pick in the first half of the draft.



WVHooligan 9/10 - 2009 SuperDraft Projected Order:

But for now let’s dive back into this discussion. Now it may be still early to talk about this but I think we have a pretty clear understanding of somethings. The order I’ve decided to go with is determined as follows: #1-7 go to non-playoff teams and expansion club, #8-11 go to quarterfinalists, #12-13 go to semifinalists, and #14-15 go to the runner up and winner of MLS Cup 2008. Within each group, teams are ranked based on regular season record. Ties are broken the same way as the regular standings. Also, for this I will continue to notion that the higher seed will win their playoff series.


These picks are not included in the above order or the number of picks below but I’m going to assume the Guevara trade is for a high pick in the first half of the draft at the moment.


Not to mention the fact that he just copied and pasted the list of trades. And notice how he says he's planning to add a list of draft prospects, obviously planning future theft.



But wait, there's more!

Just from looking at the first half of the front page, I discovered several more instances of plagiarism. Imagine if I actually looked through the whole site!

WVHooligan rips off Buzz Carrick and 3rddegree.net:

3rddegree.net 9/10 - Moor Four Year Deal

First reported by Soccer America and now confirmed by 3rd Degree, Drew Moor has signed a new four year contract.


Moor is one of FCD’s most consistent and reliable players.


Hopefully Cooper is next.

Unfortunately the article also says Cooper deal has stalled and FCD is prepping for a big move with all the allocation money they have collected.



WVHooligan 9/10 - Moor Gets Contract Extension

FC Dallas defender Drew Moor has signed a new four year contract with the club according to Soccer America and later confirmed by one of my sources.


Moor is one of club’s most consistent and reliable players, something not to many people have been able to do on that backline over the last few years.


Hopefully that means Kenny Cooper is next on the contract situation. Most figured he would be first and to a degree he is but things have stalled out from what I hear. Dallas is preparing to do something soon with all the allocation money that they’ve collected this season. I wouldn’t be shocked to see them toss most of that into a contract for Cooper.




WVHooligan rips off Ives Galarcep and Soccerbyives.net:

Soccer By Ives 9/9 - World Cup Qualifying goes global on Wednesday


At the top of the menu is the juicy England-Croatia clash in Croatia. England surely hasn't forgotten how the Croats eliminated them from Euro 2008 qualifying and now the Crostians stand between them and an automatic berth in the World Cup.


* Croatia vs. England. England will look for revenge after Croatia kept them out of Euro 2008.
* France vs. Serbia. Coming off a loss, the French desperately need a win here. The Benzema-Vidic match-up is a can't-miss.
* Portugal vs. Denmark. A disappointing draw against Hungary has the Danes needing a result here against the Ronaldo-less Portuguese.
* Macedonia vs. Netherlands. Fresh off upsetting Scotland, the Macedonians will look to add another pelt against a Dutch team favored to win loaded Group Nine.
* Mexico vs. Canada. Mexico is nearly impossible to beat at home, but Canada needs a result to keep faint hopes of reaching the Hexagonal alive.
* Russia vs. Wales. After watching them in Euro 2008, would you miss a chance to watch Russia? Throw in Wales needing a win and this one has potential for good drama.
* North Korea vs. South Korea. The same week we see USA-Cuba, we get another politically-charged clash. This one is being played at a neutral site (Shanghai).
* Uruguay vs Ecuador. Uruguay can put itself in very good shape with a win while Ecuador needs a win to pull back in serious contention in CONMEBOL.
* Iceland vs. Scotland. After losing to Macedonia, the Scottish need three points here to avoid falling too far behind.
* Honduras vs. Jamaica. Honduras can start to pull away from the pack in its group with a win here. Jamaica needs a win here pull even with Hondurans (and possibly Canada if Canada pulls the upset).



WVHooligan 9/10 - World Cup Qualifying Schedule

Aside from the CONCACAF fun there are some great matches across the pond, particularly one in Croatia. That’s right its England-Croatia, round two. England surely hasn’t forgotten how the Croats eliminated them from Euro 2008 qualifying and now the Crostians stand between them and an automatic berth in the World Cup.


Some games to keep an eye out for:

* Croatia vs. England - England will look for revenge after Croatia kept them out of Euro 2008.
* Mexico vs. Canada - Mexico is nearly impossible to beat at home and Canada is probably already in desperation mode.
* North Korea vs. South Korea - Could this one be any bigger due to the politically-charged background? This one is being played at a neutral site (Shanghai).
* Uruguay vs Ecuador - Ecuador needs a win to pull back in serious contention in CONMEBOL.
* Honduras vs. Jamaica - Honduras can start to pull away from the pack in its group with a win here. Jamaica needs a win here, just simple as that.
* USA vs. Trinidad and Tobago - Oh yeah the US plays tonight. Better believe that Toyota Park is going to be a great venue for it too!




Conclusion

Funny how Ives' typo of Crostians is not even changed. It's obvious what this is about. WVHooligan is a site with plenty of ads, so Drew or Andrew Epperley is stealing other peoples' content in order to get traffic and make money. And he is not just doing this in soccer (apparently), here is another instance of this behavior.

Epperley was listed as a "journalist in the making" at West Virginia here, where he apparently graduated in 2006. He has a degree in journalism. I can only that his current or future employers google his name and read about what he has done.

WVHooligan is linked by Du Nord and other soccer blogs, and I think those links need to be taken down by site owners. I actually used to link to him myself, probably because he asked nicely or something.

Screenshots

(taken 9/11/2008)

CTL (1, 2, 3) vs WVHooligan (1, 2, 3)
3rd Degree (1) vs WVHooligan (1)
SBI (1, 2) vs WVHooligan (1, 2)


- Ripoff of my previous version of the Superdraft preview last month, I've since deleted the word "trade" from all the listings (just like him).

- Stealing my 2008 Superdraft preview.

- CTL is listed as a "Quality Soccer Read" by WVHooligan. Heh.

Comments on "WVHooligan.com Blatantly Plagiarizes Other Soccer Blogs"

 

Blogger MSA said ... (7:29 AM, September 11, 2008) : 

I actually noticed this, too. I've been meaning to email Ives and others to let them know. I just never got around to it. Pretty sh*tty thing to do.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (8:41 AM, September 11, 2008) : 

found this on your conclusion...

"Update: It looks like Drew is another victim of this site that posts RSS feeds at www.colorado.thesourcesnowboards.com. It's rather bizarre, and somehow, they got my name mixed up with his. There is also a "Cowgirl Betty" who writes various collegiate sports articles--which I also didn't write. According to Drew (you can see in the comments section), he has tried to get the group to stop running his articles on their site, but to no avail. "

i'm not just saying this because i know the guy and went to school with him but I know he's a pretty hard worker on this kind of stuff and actually does his homework. Sure it looks similar and the timing is funny but he's got the SAME opportunity to find this kind of information as everyone else...

-wvjas

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (11:52 AM, September 11, 2008) : 

Since you're so offended by plagerism I assume you won't vote for Obama because of Biden.

 

Blogger soundersfan said ... (12:59 PM, September 11, 2008) : 

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

This is a blog, blogs copy, He's not working for the Washington Post, The New York Times, or whatever LA paper there is. Wait for him to rip a piece of thoughtful literary journalistic material, the stuff you accuse him of is menial low grade material.

Come on.

 

Blogger Malcolm said ... (1:22 PM, September 11, 2008) : 

Your completely wrong about this. Most of the stuff you claim was plagiarized is public material written down in a regular manner. If you read a lot of soccer blogs a lot of posts surrounding game times and player movements sound exactly alike. It is possible for two blogs to independently confirm a trade.

Also your draft order article is pretty easy to duplicate as any dedicated observer would probably write the same thing as both of you did.

Get off your high horse.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (2:15 PM, September 11, 2008) : 

You people are drunk if you don't see what the VW guy is doing. Nobody's saying he's stealing information. What he's doing is stealing other people's work, other people's writing, and passing it off as his own. It isn't similar-sounding stuff. It's EXACTLY the same stuff. Word for word. He is taking other people's work and trying to make money off it. Anyway you slice it, that is stealing.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (2:58 PM, September 11, 2008) : 

word for word...its a freakin' list of teams. there's no other way to make it sound any different. Who cares if he stole it or not. as for the other things mentioned, its kind of petty since if you look at his actual write ups there is a lot more information than what was actually quoted here...some of it was similar but not exact or word for word...

 

Blogger scaryice said ... (4:41 PM, September 11, 2008) : 

I'm amazed that some of you actually condone this type of behavior. It's so obvious.

 

Blogger scaryice said ... (4:46 PM, September 11, 2008) : 

Actually, "some of you" is probably the site owner posting under several different names.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (5:24 PM, September 11, 2008) : 

These are blogs. Not the fucking newspapers, magazines, etc. Who cares???? Each blog is trying to get information out to people. If you don't want someone to copy you, don't write anything. I personally like his blog and would much rather read his blog then yours. Shut up and get over it.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (8:33 PM, September 11, 2008) : 

it's true these are just blogs and not newspapers... but didn't Drew supposedly study journalism at WVU? Do they teach journalists anything about plagiarism? Between this and the Northwestern Journalism dean making up quotes in a newsletter, its no wonder the press in this country has gone to shit. Journalist jokes could be this generation's lawyer jokes.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (9:51 PM, September 11, 2008) : 

These anonymous posters screeching at you may be worse than the plagiarist. They probably also condone hit-and-run, stealing from charities, lying on job applications, claiming unearned medals (any of you earned the Medal of Honor?!), etc. Passing someone else's words off as your own is theft, plain and simple. Not that it's needed, but note the copyright symbol at the bottom of the page. Scary Ice, keep up the good work, and please keep calling out theft when you see it.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (10:44 PM, September 11, 2008) : 

I don't read either blog, so I have no vested interest either way, but as a professional writer, this stuff reeks of blatant plagiarism.

You can give two writers the same facts, and even if they draw the same conclusions from those facts, and even if they go about presenting the facts and conclusions in a similarly orderly manner, they will still produce perceptibly different copy.

WV's "writing" is so nearly identical to the previously published writings of others that it defies all imagination that he was victim to three long-shot "coincidences" in such short order.

It's theft, plain and simple. And those who say "it's just a blog, who cares?" are sad, pathetic individuals. Apparently integrity means nothing because "it's just a blog."

My advice to WV would be to link to the stuff you would otherwise steal, then write some commentary about what's in the link.

Or take the facts and write new copy about those facts. Present the facts in a new way, rather than "coincidentally" writing nearly identical copy. (To a statistically improbable degree of similarity, at all.)

Even if people like WV's site and don't like Scaryice's site, there's no reason to condone plagiarism. Or even worse, deny that it happened when it so obviously did.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (2:12 AM, September 12, 2008) : 

He has ripped off MLS Rumors for ages and no one seemed to care. He even went so far as to register the domain name http://www.mlsrumors.net and point it at his own site. How low is that? Nothing worse than an MLSR wannabee. The funny thing is, the REAL MLS-Rumors http://www.mls-rumors.net has improved drastically and has actually done their own homework, have their own sources and resources and cite any material they borrow. In other words, they have improved, whereas this site just stole more. Sad.

 

Blogger TJ said ... (3:09 AM, September 12, 2008) : 

Gosh, I'm kinda feeling left out now. I sure wish somebody would think of stealing from www.mls-daily.com sometime..

Stay tuned for my 2009 SuperDraft preview. ;-)

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (6:19 PM, September 16, 2008) : 

The debate about content is a valid one, but it's not about ownership - it's about the ability to produce insight.

Just because you play on a successful team it doesn't mean you're a good player, it just means you benefit from the good work of others - if you can't show individual qualities, you'll soon enough get shunted into the reserves.

If the guy can't recognise how soccer is a metaphor for life he won't prosper in the long run.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (7:39 PM, September 18, 2008) : 

Thanks for posting this. I unsubscribed from his site a long time ago for a similar reason - plagiarism or not (and I am one who thinks plagiarism blog or otherwise without proper citation is despicable in any context), there is nothing "original" about his site. In this day of so many MLS blogs, to have a well read blog you need something creative and original. He had neither and stole content to survive. Good fan made site like Climbing the Ladder and the Offside Rules succeed by being original and unique. WVHooligan was neither. If this evidence of plagiarism doesn't kill the site, its lack of good content will eventually. Let's hope.

 

Blogger Allen said ... (10:00 AM, September 19, 2008) : 

MSL Rumors is just flat our horrible. The crowning moment for me with that site was their asshole touch of dragging Clavijo's family emergency through the mud. The motto for that site should be something like "No standards, no soul".

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (4:13 PM, November 27, 2009) : 

Even bloggers should have standards. Drew consistently copy and pastes original writing from other blogs, which is indefensible in my opinion.

As for MLS Rumors, that site is joke, and always will be.

 

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