What follows here is the resignation I posted to the Open Salon web site. It also became the inspiration for starting my own web site, the one you are now reading.
I am about to piss in the soup and I may wind up banned here . . .
I just spent two hours writing and tweaking a 1300 words-plus, spill-my guts-piece about my entire life (“I am a Failure”).
Not a lot of views and no rankings. I can live with that.
There were no literary flourishes, no clever metaphors or slippery similes. No drama. No tears. But it was honest and real.
Then I come back online a little later that day and I see on the OS home page thast a posting, “It’s On, Like Donkey Kong” is Top Rated by 14 people in the last four hours.
But the article is a blatant piece of plagiarism except for the brief intro that is an attempted justification for the theft.
So I have only three words.
WTF? – err, I mean, pass the croutons?
I’m leaving OS. I have been here just long enough to realize I am insulting myself by participating in a system that can give high rating, in a few hours, to a plagarized article, while genuine, hard work is done by others who get little or no recognition. I have read some really fine writers here but I just can’t remain.
There is a principle in the world of “clean rooms,” those laboratory-like places where devices for space or other high-tech purposes are assembled. The air is filtered down to micron levels. The workers are swathed in special clothing that prevents even a minute piece of desquamating skin from contaminating the work in progress.
My journalism standards are not at that level. But seeing and participating in a venue where a gross violation of copyright law is not merely tolerated, but actually applauded, makes me realize that the ambiance is contaminating and the infection highly contagious.
So, if and when I learn that OS has grown a spine, and some principles as to what is creative and what is not, I’ll be be pleased and happy to return.
Unless and until then . . . buh-bye.