Plagiarizing SquirrelTerror

So someone’s been plagiarizing Squirrel!Terror.

Here’s Squirrel!Terror on my LiveJournal. Now these are original posts, or parts of them, because my LJ is merely a backup for my blog here. Where the LJ entries cut off is where there was a cut directing readers to my site, which is why plenty of the Squirrel!Terror articles were unable to be resurrected from LJ export like some of my other posts were after the hacking.

Here’s the Squirrel!Terror tag on my website–the very same website that was hacked, during which I lost most of SquirrelTerror, which led me to the present-day attempt of getting the entries together for my Readers. The person I’ve hired to help me edit, copyedit, and format it into reasonable shape for ebooks found the plagiarism via some Google-fu.

Which is, of all things…on Daily Kos. Here’s the plagiarizer, a certain “Noddy”. And here’s my own Kos profile, in the interests of full disclosure.

I’m saddened, of course. I’m a little peeved, but I’m used to people stealing my work. I’ve sent a message through Facebook and through Kos to ask this person to take down the posts, there and everywhere else she’s tried to pass off my work as her own. I’ll be crossposting this to Kos as well. Since I’m planning on bringing the tales of Neo, Mercutio, and the gang to ebook form due to reader request, I want to be very clear about the fact that I wrote them, I own them, and this is not okay. I’m not sure if this will impact my plans to bring them to ebook.

It’s just…sad. Very sad. I hope this person does the right thing.

UPDATE, 5/11/13: Skyla Dawn Cameron, who is the above-named “person I’ve hired to help me edit, copyedit…” has gone public about how she found the plagiarism.

Also, I crossposted over at Kos, and was immediately buried under an avalanche of comments about how I must be lying. *shrug*

As things stand, I’m undecided about whether or not to bring out the ebook. This whole thing just makes me feel violated and like it’s not a good idea, even if the tales of Neo and the Backyard give some joy to my dear Readers. I don’t know yet. I’m thinking about it.

UPDATE, 5/11/13: Skyla has kindly compiled all the evidence into an easy form: SquirrelPlagiarism. That link leads to a ZIP file (right-click to download, I believe) where you will find, in her words:

“- A spreadsheet with links and dates to your original entry, the now-deleted link to Noddy’s, and a cached version of the page I viewed. Note that if you have trouble viewing the cached version, you can plug the deleted link into google–the result will have a little arrow you can click next to it that lets you view the cache. Also, some are still viewable in the Wayback Machine, at least the older ones.

- Screenshots of snippets from each entry. The entries were long and wouldn’t fit on one screen but *in case* they are needed, they can be easily blogged.”–Skyla Dawn Cameron, in email

I think reaction is setting in. I feel dizzy and shaky, and physically nauseous. So far there’s been no word from the plagiarizer, though I contacted “Noddy” before I wrote the initial post last night, both through the Kos site and through her listed Facebook profile to ask her to take the posts down. It appears 2 out of the 20 or so remain up, so maybe she has, I don’t know. Several Kos commenters asked why I didn’t stick around in the comments to “defend my accusation” and why I didn’t put up side-by-side examples. My intent in posting there, where the event had occurred, was to quietly but publicly let “Noddy” know that her theft had been noticed. As for sticking around for the comments, I’m glad I didn’t, given what the first avalanche of them was like. I didn’t put up side by side examples because looking at them made me sick. Instead, I put up the links and trusted that people would go and see for themselves. Perhaps that wasn’t the right way to handle it, but that’s what I did and I stand by every decision I made.

I’m hoping this is the last thing I have to say about this whole chain of events, unless it’s “Here is the apology.” If I receive any communication I’ll post it, and then hopefully this will be done. I’ve got books to write, I don’t have time for this bullshit.