and are you one of these accusing tigers, Tigers?

I find this fascinating. What if he wrote part or all of the Wikipedia contribution on facades? What if under his guidance, students put academic research on Wikipedia under the "facades" heading. 

If a work is the product of thousands of people, a collective effort, where does attribution need to be instituted? Did AZP present the work as is own, or did he merely "curate" the facades section of the Biennale as Rem did?

Did Rem properly attribute his toilets to their original designer/ craftsmen?

Anyone who hasn't grabbed some shit off Wikipedia and re-written it for fill or particularly banal portions of articles (introductions, overviews, etc)  is probably not a very good writer.

Why waste your intellect on beautiful words to describe the basics of building facades when you could easily adapt some other writing when the topic has been covered ad- nauseam. Then you pour your mind into the writing that relates to the truly original research and design that you are actually interested in writing about. 

I would never say this under my real name, as it is like academic suicide, but EVERYONE copies, just not everyone is good at obfuscating/ re-writing in a way that makes it original. 

Hell, half the best building geometry I ever scripted was based 90% on someone else's code... but they had never been able (or interested) to make the conceptual leap to achieve some new result.

I really am not surprised and don't think this is a huge deal.

I agree 100% with archanonymous.  I don't see how an accusation of plagiarizing Wikipedia can hold up.

I should probably clarify that I agree 100% with archanonymous' first two and final paragraphs.  As to reworking wikipedia for the more boring parts of your papers: copying is copying, and adapting is not copying.  In academia the plagiarism standards are very high.  Better to write your own version.

i would think the dishonest part isn't just that he stole other people's work, but that he tried to get people to think he came up with it.

you're not 'stealing' from wikipedia if you use them as a source (since i'm pretty sure their terms allow their material to be copied), but they should still be credited.  however, if he's saying 'look, i'm smart, i know stuff about facades' that's kind of misleading if the best he can do is copy/paste from wikipedia.  by claiming expertise in an area he apparently does not have expertise, it's academically dishonest.

for more information,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academic_use

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia

also from wikipedia:

Wikipedia's content is dually licensed under both the GFDL and CC-BY license models. Contributors continue to own copyright to their contributions, but liberally license it for reuse and modification. GFDL and CC-BY do require attribution.

of course if he did write the wikipedia article, he retains the rights to his own works and there is nothing wrong with using that work for the venice biennial.

"Plagiarism    : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own :  use (another's production) without crediting the source"  (Merriam-Webster.com)

It ain't the copying that's the problem, it's the false impression of original work created by leaving out any credit to the source.

OK, I see your distinction.  Still, something about tiger's original post just sounds like mean-spirited hair-splitting.  One would think if one's accusations were sound then one wouldn't have to hide behind anonymity.  I'm skeptical that AZP has done anything wrong.

Donna, 

I appreciate the distinction and was not promoting the plagiarism of Wikipedia, or any other source material... but in nearly every creative pursuit, there is a unique milieu of information surrounding some topic you wish to write about, and I think it is very rare that through a career, not one unoriginal or dubiously attributed thought would make it into your work, just from being exposed to such a milieu.

A certain portion of that information is directly accessible to the writer, while other thoughts and ideas may filter in through multiple layers or adjacency. I (and the academy) see nothing wrong with reading 5 people's version of "An Introduction to Building Facade's" or the equivalent, then reading each one of their sources, then constructing my own "An Introduction to Building Facades." but the fact is, it will be substantially similar to the other 5 texts. 

Furthermore, if my point was not to write "An Introduction to Building Facades" but rather to write "An exploration of advanced concepts in the fabrication of novel structural facades" , and I just needed an overview to orient readers, I just wasted a ton of time and effort re-writing some shit that is not even the focus of my research.  Better and more expedient to get good at re-writing, re-phrasing and re-focusing already written works to work towards your ends. 

but i see both sides of the argument. And yes, Wikipedia is "lame" but I bet encyclopedia britanica does not have a chapter on building facades.

Great Movie Scenes] Good Will Hunting - Bar Scene: http://youtu.be/ymsHLkB8u3s

>>>great movie scenes...

The Great Beauty by Sorrentino - a case of plagiarism?

In the movie "La Great Beauty" I found many settings, characters, names, gags and music very similar to those I wrote or draw for the series and exhibitions entitled "Robert Star in Venice" - "Contemporary Commedia dell'Arte", realized between 2007 and 2011: an exhibition press release, six sketches, two brief dictionaries.

http://cri-tic-ah.blogspot.it/2014/04/the-movie-great-beauty-similar-to-my.html

I heard about this accusation too but from what I understand it has already been resolved. The claim came from a PhD student at Princeton  who had been fired from the project by AZP. Some time later he accessed the project archive and brought a claim to the university based on an outdated, non-published document. Instances of copying had already been rewritten by the time the accusation came forward and Alejandro had to be dissuaded from filing a libel suit against the student. 

Do you know what this text is from? Its part of Rem's 2336 page long book on toilets and stairs and corridors. I'm guessing some of this text is lifted from wikipedia. 

My sense is that this post is coming from a disgruntled student whose smear campaign failed and this is a last-ditch effort at defamation.

Interesting, Tigers is likely to be (name removed by moderator). He was boasting about it to other students for a while but nobody thought he was serious, although this is not a first: he had already accused some of his PHD colleagues of plagiarism, mainly to muscle his way up through the credit lists of joint projects. He has a reputation as a credit bully, and never accepts going anywhere but second. And the inclination to stamp his name to any paper that comes his way. He would not like to be fired or demoted in a credit list. He was also one of the main anti-AZP campaigners during the deanship search, and in the mini-uprise that greeted AZP when he took the post. So there may be other reasons for this.

If all this is true, he may have gone too far. I am with archanonymous on this: what is the big deal of using Wikipedia to do research? Is it illegal? Hasn’t it become the default research facility for everybody? Nobody writes code from scratch and nobody has a problem for people using stuff that is in the public domain; why should writing be different? But of course, in Princeton, Wikipedia is anathema; we are supposed to use only primary sources, so we spend all our time digging out stuff rather than thinking. In any case, the text is already published and can be easily dropped into a plagiarism software to see how much Wikipedia is left in it. Has anybody tried?

Come now, tigerstoo, do we have to stoop to (name removed by moderator)'s level by publicly shaming (name removed by moderator)? My dear tiger-stool, it's unfortunate enough to be named (name removed by moderator), but to be the child of a dirty cobbler, only Loos could imagine the horror. . . Even if (name removed by moderator) deserves to be the inaugural member of Rate My Academic Colleague, I'd still suggest you and your fellow kardashians - I mean ass-tattooed tigers - consider a traditional gauntlet of physical violence followed by a few rounds of quarters before before following in (name removed by moderator)'s ugly footsteps. But I'm old school that way.

Never heard of either guy, so looked them up. FOA did know that...anyway this is quite the classicly entertaining Archinect thread - old school, I am with 'boy in the well', a good cage match would be exciting enough to get people to read whatever we are talking about here. What page could I find this text on 'somethinganonymous'?

I've heard that it is no the first time he is accused of plagiarism, or maybe it is the same case. Any way. He published a text in his name, but it occurred to be an original work of one his students at Princeton.

But hey come on! Thats one of the benefits of being a architectural theorist at a prestigious university. Have students do all the work, and you take the credit. 

Wait a minute that sound familiar. Yep. Rem Koolhaas and his infamous Venice exhibition and not the least the Elements of architecture book. There was a bit controversy whether the Howard student should get more credit for their work. 

I heard he crushes kittens, or maybe that he doesn't.

Theres a pretty substantial controversy about it going on, but its, like, a secret, so no one's heard about it.

are there any rationalizations of plagiarism? I think everyone agrees that you cite a source. Other than that, we have some writers acknowledging that its not worthwhile to rewrite history in order to write 3 sentences (and, ok, some mediocre chap accusing everyone of copying, which isn't true; a lot of people don't. But I suppose there are bad eggs floating to the top everywhere....). So what's absurd? I just think that everyone posting here smells a rat, or a ratt, or a Bratt, or, god forbid, a (name removed by moderator). Its sad if you cant recognize that.

Boy in the well - you do realize that no one really cares about this situation right? Other than the institutions of Princeton and Wikipedia most people including architects would be hard pressed to know these people "allegedly" involved and what the hell this is all about. I find this to be a very entertaining thread. I want to see more mud slinging to keep me interested.

I have a pile of rocks and an uncontrollable urge to comfort the lonely and neglected threads of archinect. And I've heard there might be a tiger on my ass, but I've never seen it.

what was your point again?

talk to the hand boy.

How about just a finger?

hahahaha....I used that once when i kept a school blog ('06-'07) when some Kieran Timberlake supporter tried to bash me anonymously...years later I find myself working for an architect who specializes in waterproofing and we are looking at those drawings those kids did for Yale.   btw Eero's drawings for the Yale housing are pretty cool.

Definitely, the petty academic accountancy, holier than thou practices are, by far, the worst enemy of originality in research. Particularly when people make a career of becoming the watchdogs, to propel themselves forward in the credits of joint projects.

As for the rationalizations of plagiarism, what scale of copying constitutes crime? A 10-word chain? A paragraph? A whole chapter? An idea? And, don’t the Harvard students know that anything they do while working for RK, paid or as part of their academic requirements belongs to the project? Otherwise, nobody could develop research in research Universities like Harvard and Princeton. If the students were capable of getting the commission for the Biennale by themselves, they would not be working for RK. Would you? You can’t agree to work on a faculty project and then claim authorship for it. If you want to preserve your authorship, do not work for faculty research, particularly if it is paid research.

Amazon says that Koolhaas’ book with AZP façade chapter is out and published by Marsilio. I am sure that the accounting tigers have already got a copy of it, and have checked it out thoroughly for Wikipedia bits. They could share with us the sins of RK and AZP rather than spinning off anonymous rumors. If they want to become the Wikileaks of architecture, they need to deliver the goods.   

http://www.dezeen.com/2015/03/16/rem-koolhaas-accuses-princeton-architecture-school-of-category-error-over-alejandro-zaera-polo/

http://www.archdaily.com/610084/koolhaas-denounces-plagiarism-rumors-surrounding-zaera-polo-s-princeton-resignation/

http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/daily-news/zaera-polo-hits-out-at-plagiarism-rumours-following-princeton-exit/8680018.article

Harvard 4, Princeton 0, with a disappointing performance of Eisgruber.

Where is Tigers gone? We need some help and he appeared to have insider information. Further anonymous defamation will not work any longer.

can I get this internet rumble in monograph form to put on my coffee table?

Wow! We had heard many of these rumors before, but never so articulated. It is not difficult to trace the conspirators from this description. 

If the unwarranted access to AZP archives and the slander are true and they happen under Eisgruber's watch he may be in trouble too. 

All this would come out in the depositions if AZP sues. But will he? Dinosaur is right. May be too expensive for what he may get, which is basically, a revenge. 

Chickens coming to roast.

Just found this in the Prince:

http://dailyprincetonian.com/news/2016/10/amended-lawsuit-against-u-filed-by-former-dean-of-architecture-alleges-dismissed-investigations-into-prentice-eisgruber/

It looks as if there was quite a lot of stuff happening silently in the background, and it is now exploding in a thunder.

But no trace of Mr. Always-dirty and his geriatric faculty. Although there is a mention of "unauthorized and secret invasion of Zaera-Polo’s private computer archive," allegedly one of their most accomplished jobs in the process. Is the University shielding them?

I have asked for my very own copy of the amended complaint and will post it when I get it. It looks promising!

So, as promised: here is the amended lawsuit of Zaera-Polo vs. Princeton, fresh from the court, filed on October 12. In the very thread that contains the authentic “August 3 posting,” the onus of the defamation claims. Princeton has not filed any reply since June, which is strange since the customary period to file a reply in a civil lawsuit is around 4-5 weeks.

One has to tread carefully here because these are the Plaintiff’s allegations, but if they happen to be true, both Eisgruber and Prentice will need some cheek to stay put after after acting so self-righteously and then presiding over such an unbelievable chain of mistakes and breaches. It looks as if the reason for the amended complaint is the University’s revelations about the investigation and the resulting attributions, which are in breach of the University’s confidentiality of process, and the claims of fairness and ethical standards, which appear to be massively overstated an may put into question not just the moral status of the President and the Dean of Faculty but of a string of “perfunctory” committees and watchdogs. Eisgruber appears to have exonerated himself of breach of process and derelict of duty and Prentice appears to have engaged in breaches of confidentiality, several breaches of process, breach of the University standards of proof, breach of data and misuse of information. If the complaints are true, Princeton’s “fairness” and ethical standards have been brought down to an entirely new level, directly under Eisgruber’s supervision. See underlined paragraphs!

https://we.tl/JaZCaJ5gbq

But no explicit mention of Mr. Always-dirty and the geriatric faculty, which appear to be hiding behind a confidentiality which they were first to breach. The University is now the target of the attack. That is also where the money is. Zaera-Polo is obviously rising the price tag.

That's old news just surfacing in court. There is more interesting gossip around: apparently Nader Tehrani and Sarah Whiting were in the committee which investigated AZP on behalf of the university. Then, they reappeared in the shortlist that the search committee made to fill the Dean's post, run by Stan Allen and constituted by at least two of the "geriatric faculty". At the last minute, Princeton realized that the search committee had included all the external guests to the investigation committee and shot them down. So Monica won because she was not involved. That's how things happened.

If these records AZP is seeking to make public are disclosed by the court the shit is gonna hit the fan and will spread way beyond Princeton.

This seems to be a week old, but it looks as if the defamation case from Zaera-Polo is not going well for Princeton. Apparently they tried to get the case dismissed and failed miserably:

http://thetab.com/us/princeton/2017/03/04/judge-hands-princeton-big-loss-defamation-case-former-deans-claims-can-go-forward-4649

https://www.law360.com/articles/898562/nj-judge-refuses-to-toss-ex-princeton-dean-s-breach-suit

Looks as if now the President and the Dean of Faculty (who by the way is moving up to Provost!) will have to make depositions.

We have checked with the court, but the verdict and the motions are not yet available. Will keep checking and post them as soon as they are available.

Btw, as promised, a better version of the complaint can be found in the following link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByvUQL89DZdScE1TSFc5elB3cmM/view?usp=sharing

All right! Contacted the court to see if the verdicts and papers from the two motions lost by Princeton were ready. And, unbelievably, they were not. I wonder why the judge is not making them available. Is he too busy? Or the publication of the details is too controversial? In any case, documents filed in a public court are public unless there is some reason to keep confidentiality on them. Princeton tried to seal the case and allegedly lost already. So, what is holding the papers from public scrutiny?

The good news is that I found out that Princeton has (finally!!!) filed a response to the amended complaint. I just got my copy. Kinda low-key. They deny everything in very ambiguous terms, and they blame defamatory activities on “third parties.” In fact they deny the existence of the August 3rd posting (2014) which triggers this thread. Presumably that they know who are the authors of that post, which clearly breaches the confidentiality of process of Princeton’s investigations. Sure! There were three parties in those investigations: the complainant, Ever-soiled, AZP and the University itself. The university probably did not do the posting, and obviously AZP didn’t do it either. So, who could possibly had done it? Ever-soiled, his chums and the three members of the faculty that supported him and went to talk to Eisgruber: the geriatric faculty and the socialite engineer (the most important of all).

So, Eisgruber appears to deny that he knew that this thread existed before asking AZP to step down with immediate effect. Bollocks. He obviously knew, and he failed to act against Ever-soiled and his pals for breaching confidentiality, accessing illegally AZP’s archive, and engaging in defamatory practices, before asking AZP to resign. That makes him a clear accomplish in the defamatory process which he is trying to blame on “third parties.” Eisgruber and Prentice are obvious partners of Ever-soiled, his chums, the geriatric faculty and the socialite engineer. And it looks that a few other Princeton officers and committees have also colluded with them to conceal the process.

Enjoy the link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dvkv7c2gsz0ixhl/Answer%20Zaera-Polo%20vs.%20Princeton.pdf?dl=0

Next time, hopefully, I will be able to deliver the verdict of the failed Motion to Dismiss and Motion to Seal! One day, they will have to release the stuff to the public. It’s the law!

Just on a holiday mission back to the court...

Found some documents that show the reason for this extraordinary delay in the publication of the verdicts. over a month old already:

https://www.dropbox.com/home?p...

Looks as if the lawyers from the University and AZP's lawyers are fighting over redactions of the documents apparently because of FERPA, so maybe Ever-soiled and Co. are involved in blocking the publication of materials... But it looks as if there is a process whereby a publication will be made, hopefully soon. Legal rhythm is too slow for me.

"Nothing against the brothers and sisters." 

(Followed by a diatribe discrediting nameless individuals)

oops!

here it goes again!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8nfs...

the real scandal is the potato scanner being used to upload those documents.

My comment was not about the hiring procedures at Princeton.

My comment about was the patronizing misappropriation of a common phrase to set up a string of comments to belittle unnamed individuals- only to fan a fire.

Oh I am sorry about the quality of the scan, you know I am reporting from the front, and hand-held scanners are sometimes unreliable.Not too interesting if you cannot read. Just that the lawyers are fighting about the extent of redaction of the documents to be published about the two lost motions by Princeton, who were trying to seal the whole case. And they are discussing about FERPA, so probably Princeton is trying to hide the names of the students involved.

I have also heard about the mass hiring of African-Americans at the SoA as a perfect symbiosis between an embattled president eager to show that he is no Woodrow Wilson (which in fact he is not) and a Dean in need to dilute the toxic faculty at the SoA. But my information is that they are not four but three, and in fact they just announced the hiring of a female professor of Middle Eastern origin educated at the ETH. But still, 15% of the faculty hired in one year are African-American. Meanwhile they kicked out Axel Kilian, one of the most decent people in the faculty. So, the SoA is back to its customary technical ignorance. All signs of a school in very bad health.

I'll just wait until Netflix comes with

"How to make a Plagiarist"

I assume this person is trying to salvage their reputation. This sounds like an incredibly toxic work environment. I don't disagree with you Donna but I think many SOAs are looney bins.

dinosaur, your writing is dreadful.

Back to school, back on the beat… a short conversation with the court clerk has confirmed that those much expected documents of the failed Motions are now filed. I can’t wait to lay my hands on them. I promise I will upload them as usual, once I receive my copy.

Amazing cast, Dinosaur, I love Mucksack, Fried-Brains, Foil! That is very funny. And by the way, yes I am also a white (gay) male. And I would definitely support the replacement of Eisgruber by Michelle Obama!

Court clerk says that they are checking some redactions before they can release the documents. They have been like that for weeks. And the hearings were in April... Sounds very odd to me.

As for the hirings, I have not heard anything either. I had also heard the faculty of the school had rubberstamped the appointments of Marshall Brown and Mabel Wilson to the rank of full professors... I am pretty sure this is reliable info. But this is long ago, before the summer. Perhaps they have realized how clumsy the whole thing is just after the Eisgruber sit-in, and they are getting cold feet about it.

"Is the SoA going down the path of becoming another run of the mill school that processes lots of people [...] rather than curating truly sophisticated thinking?"

Well, they let you in, so my guess is they gave up on "curating truly sophisticated thinking" long ago, whatever that means.

I don't get it.  Why are you scared of black professors?  

You still do not get that I have nothing against black professors. I am sure these guys are wonderful. I am against hiring three of them, maybe four, one after another in a department of twelve (that is, if the rumors are correct, can anybody else confirm?).

So, you're just a racist then. You don't see them as professors but as black professors and are against their appointment because of the colour of their skin, even if they would be doing a wonderful job. You're standing in the schoolhouse door, 1963 all over again...

Hey dinoracist0.5, those are not my words you are quoting there, you can't even quote properly. Be careful, you might be accused of plagiarism...