Jan 12, 2007 10:17 PM
3596 Views
It has been very eventful couple of days for me here at Mouthshut. I was a casual visitor to the site earlier, but on my friend's insistance I decided to join. My friend is an active member and has written a few reviews. So when she insisted that I should join, I accepted. I too have some interest in writing, so I thought it would be a good idea to join and share my views and thoughts. This has been going on for a few days and I was gradually more and more attracted to the website. Until Jan 11.
I came cross a review on plagiarism by an MS member written by ms2gp. I do not know who he is, but the issue that he had brought up was shocking. This was against the very principles which I thought MS stood on, and was deeply interested in knowing what the outcome of all this was. I thought that maybe the MS member in question(sourray) would come up with an apology and regret what has happened with a promise not to repeat this in future. My assumption was based on the fact that he was a'star writer' with close to 100 reviews in his name would act responsibly and not misplace the trust that many MS members had in him. Unfortunately, sourray denied any allegation of plagiarism and in fact claimed that he has written those reviews in bbc.co.uk and sun tabloid and londonpaper.com himself under different pseudonyms. That blew my fuse.
I discussed the matter with my friend and asked her to take up the issue on MS as a matter of principle. She refused. Had I been an old member of MS I too would have been overawed by sourray's personality and would have chosen to remain silent. But I was new to MS and naturally aggresive. I investigated the whole thing on my own and found out that not only Deja vu, but reviews on Poseidon, The Lake and Lady in the Water were also taken pretty word by word from the websites of BBC, Sun, Londonpaper etc. I replied in sourrays comment section confronting him with the new facts and challenging him to admit his fault. I also posted my first review on the same issue. I admit my language was abusive. I admit I forgot etiquettes. For that I apologise to MS members and also to sourray. I have nothing personal against him - I hardly know him! I have corrected my review and have withdrawn the abuses. But I stand by my statements. Unfortunately sourray persisted with his unbelievable statements. Some MS members came to his rescue and accused me of witch hunting. I have no ill feelings towards them. I too would have done the same if sourray had been on my TC for years.
Mouthshut administrators have acted fast. I did not approach them. They themselves chose to remove starwriter status from sourray and flagged his profile. They also removed sourray's review on Deja vu and all the comments that accompanied it. Sourray probably has quit MS. But he has lived his charmed life at MS. But I died here within a few hours of my birth. Who is more unfortunate?
So goodbye MS members. I would not like to be remembered as someone who proved to be the nemesis of a starwriter. I did not enjoy my short stay at MS. But I believe this site is great and has a good future. I will continue to make occasional visits, but only as a guest.
Regards from Dheeraj
