NYT Viswanathan article mentions MeFi

May 1, 2006 8:29 AM

MetaFilter cited in New York Times' article about Kaavya Viswanathan.
posted by ericb to MetaFilter-Related at 8:29 AM (33 comments total)

Very strange that they mention it but don't link it (as they do Amazon, for example). Also strange that they quote EB by his real name. Here's the MeFi-related section:

But what if she had been deaf and blind?

That was a question raised in a discussion at Metafilter, where Andrew Shalit, in a defense of Ms. Viswanathan's claim of unconscious copying, pointed to the Helen Keller archives at the Web site for the American Foundation for the Blind.

There, in her autobiography "The Story of My Life," Ms. Keller describes how, at age 12, she wrote a story — "The Frost King" — that created her own publishing scandal.

"Mr. Anagnos was delighted with 'The Frost King,' and published it in one of the Perkins Institution reports," Ms. Keller wrote (Chapter 14 at afb.org/mylife). ...

Back at Metafilter, Keith M. Ellis wondered if Ms. Keller would have received a fair shake in the rush to judgment that is now de rigueur in the Internet age.

"It seems to me we give zero consideration to the possibility that it might be plagiarism, but unintentional," Mr. Ellis wrote, adding: "If we changed the name and obscured the disability-indicating details, would we still be willing to consider innocence?"

A piercing question, that...

posted by languagehat at 8:40 AM on May 1, 2006

Back at Metafilter, Keith M. Ellis wondered if Ms. Keller would have received a fair shake in the rush to judgment that is now de rigueur in the Internet age.

Did Rothko write the article?
posted by Optimus Chyme at 8:58 AM on May 1, 2006

Hehe.
posted by Bugbread at 9:01 AM on May 1, 2006

I'm surprised they don't do something like "Metafilter, a community discussion site". They just let the name stand on it's own, like Amazon.
posted by smackfu at 9:02 AM on May 1, 2006

The thread in question.
Matt you should tell your occasional employers that you were gypped a link.
posted by peacay at 9:02 AM on May 1, 2006

Doesn't that take EB's statement out of context where he later admitted that it was probably plagerism but was defending the broad idea that someone could take something by accident?
posted by drezdn at 9:40 AM on May 1, 2006

Also strange that they quote EB by his real name.

Why is that strange?
posted by cribcage at 9:43 AM on May 1, 2006

All quotes thus far have been cited by username, right? This is the first one I've noticed that hasn't been...
posted by hototogisu at 9:49 AM on May 1, 2006

I like the way the reporter made EB concise!

(I kid because I love.)
posted by LarryC at 10:07 AM on May 1, 2006

I really need to get a stock ticker symbol so I can show up as a link like Amazon did.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:27 AM on May 1, 2006

I really need to get a stock ticker symbol so I can show up as a link like Amazon did.

So a $5 donation gives membership AND one share in MetaFilter Inc.
posted by chndrcks at 10:43 AM on May 1, 2006

MATH^OWIE 140.45 (+3.10)
I mourn the death of <marquee>
posted by Plutor at 11:39 AM on May 1, 2006

All quotes thus far have been cited by username, right?

No, not in that article. Have there been others?
posted by cribcage at 11:42 AM on May 1, 2006

cribcage : "No, not in that article. Have there been others?"

Yes, but they're all archived and non-browsable now. If memory serves me, they always used usernames, not real names.
posted by Bugbread at 12:01 PM on May 1, 2006

Obviously not in that article. Was it the Guardian? I can't remember--it has happened several times, but if they ever cite anyone, it's always by username.
posted by hototogisu at 12:42 PM on May 1, 2006

NYTimes: the best of the Metafilter

The patients have taken over the asylum, friends. Now they must comment on US!!!
posted by Marnie at 4:44 PM on May 1, 2006

I don't get what the big fuss is about with this girl. They're comparing her to James Frey (who isn't a plagiarist), come on.
posted by delmoi at 6:30 PM on May 1, 2006

I think the article title—"In Internet Age, Writers Face Frontier Justice"—would have been better had it read "In Internet Age, Internet Writers Face Internet Justice".
posted by kenko at 7:14 PM on May 1, 2006

In Soviet Internet, Frontier Metafilter Justice Faces!
posted by ludwig_van at 5:22 AM on May 2, 2006

As long as we're here, it's worth noting that Viswanathan seems to have lifted from two other books in addition to those written by McCafferty--Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella, and, as cited in the NYT article in ericb's post, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie.

This makes editing the book for re-release additionally problematic, I'd guess.
posted by Prospero at 5:57 AM on May 2, 2006

I'm sure those were unintentional as well, right? Ugh. She should be barred from ever picking up a pen again.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 6:32 AM on May 2, 2006

MATHOWIE 140.45 (+3.10)

MeFi goes public!

Also strange that they quote EB by his real name.

we don't really know if it's his real name. but it is the name you see on his profile page, it's not that they stalked him or something. having said that, if you're so lazy that you quote Internet strangers on your NYT story, you might as well quote them by their username.
or, try to talk to some non-Internet people instead.
posted by matteo at 6:38 AM on May 2, 2006

And apparently she borrowed from The Princess Diaries as well, according to the Harvard Crimson.
posted by Prospero at 6:42 AM on May 2, 2006

it is the name you see on his profile page, it's not that they stalked him or something

Of course, and I wasn't implying that—it's just common practice to quote commenters by username. Not at the Times, obviously. I wonder if they have a policy of only quoting people whose real (or, as you say, apparently real) names are available?
posted by languagehat at 7:38 AM on May 2, 2006

Interesting. I was thinking of writing a letter to the Times about the Helen Keller connection, in response to one of the early articles. It's nice to see I didn't have to bother.

It feels curious being quoted by name in the context of a metafilter discussion, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised given that my profile contains my e-mail address and Google quickly leads from my e-mail address to my name.
posted by alms at 8:20 AM on May 2, 2006

OK, I just found out that my brother-in-law knows Ethereal Bligh. Bizarre. (They both went to St. John's, and hang out on the school's highly-active listserv.)
posted by alms at 9:56 AM on May 2, 2006

it's worth noting that Viswanathan seems to have lifted from two other books in addition to those written by McCafferty--Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella, and, as cited in the NYT article in ericb's post, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie.

Ooh! I was right! I had wondered about that. Wow. That's pretty crazy.
posted by furiousthought at 10:20 AM on May 2, 2006

This makes editing the book for re-release additionally problematic, I'd guess.

Maybe they can color-code the text by source.
posted by smackfu at 10:57 AM on May 2, 2006

Maybe they can color-code the text by source.

And apportion the royalties accordingly?
posted by alms at 10:58 AM on May 2, 2006

"OK, I just found out that my brother-in-law knows Ethereal Bligh. Bizarre. (They both went to St. John's, and hang out on the school's highly-active listserv.)"

Did he tell you that we had just exchanged emails? If not, the world is even smaller than you think. He had posted to the johnnie announcement list your sister's (has to be if he's your brother-in-law, right?) new book and I realized that I knew of her by way of my ex-wife and I recalled some of the castings she had made at CSF in the early 90s. It was sort of weird to have a roundabout non-sjc connection to another johnnie.

And then here's metafilter pulled into this vortex. Weird.

And, yes matteo, that is in fact my real name. Incidentally, when I was at SJC I was "Keith M. McIntyre-Ellis". After my divorce I went back to my, er, maiden name.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:10 PM on May 2, 2006

So this was actually in yesterday's business section? I can't tell, but it shows up as one of the regular stories in the headline listing for May 1. If so, I'll be pretty excited to actually have my name in the NYT.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:22 PM on May 2, 2006

New York magazine does a feature every week called The Approval Matrix. In the HighBrow/Despicable quadrant this week (Kissels on the cover), And as a former instructor of Viswanathan's noted: "Plagirizing from chick lit has to be some kind of double whammy against artistic integrity. Which is her infamous comment originally posted in the Metafilter thread.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:25 PM on May 2, 2006 [1 favorite]

New York magazine does a feature every week called The Approval Matrix

See it here.
posted by ericb at 7:24 PM on May 2, 2006