I appreciate the right of people to suggest that this is a waste of time, and question my motives, after all its an open forum and I am asking for advice. Waste of time people, if you are so concerned about productive time, get the f^ck of internet forums. Motives people, fair enough I might have a hidden agenda, maybe I should have prefaced my question with a couple of thousand words of couch time about how I feel about cheaters (or whatever). Or you could have just answered the question that I asked! Assuming that my interest in this stems from something vindictive, and not from a professional interest in academic standards suggests a great deal about YOU! People that assume that the application of professional academic standards on themselves or anyone else amounts to a personal attack are sadly to common in this profession.
How dare you, you self-righteous blowhard!!! I have watched enough people in several different professions play the backstabbing game to question anyone's motives for "outing" someone. I just had a colleague commit suicide. I don't why s/he did it, but someone challenging his/her dissertation could be just the trigger to set off someone. You are about to absolutely F*** UP someone's life, even if the person is innocent. You had better be right. Thus, we ask questions about motive. We ask questions about whether this is worth the fight. This is not about not wanting to uphold academic standards. This is about trying not to F*** UP some innocent person's life. It's called caution, due diligence, and a host of other things. You had better be absolutely, 100%, without-a-doubt right. If you're not, people will ask all of these questions again, and if you think we're hard about it, wait until the rest of this person's colleagues get a hold on you.
Exactly my point earlier. I hate plagiarists as much as the next person, but someone also falsely accused me of plagiarizing once. While I proved them wrong, it was a messy affair. There are many reasons to exercise caution and compassion. Your first posts about Wikipedia could have been explained by any number of reasons. Yes, it now sounds like it's plagiarised, but take a step back and remove your emotional response here.
It sounds to me like you're taking pleasure in bringing this person down. I'd take a good look at your own reasons for this. Catching a plagiarist should not a gleeful or exciting act. It's disappointing. It's sad. It's pathetic. It does us all an injustice. But it sure as hell never made me happy (and I've caught people plagiarising my own work several times, in theses and in publications).
