Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

More Paranoia from the Alaska Natural History Association

Remember last December in a post about the Alaska Natural History Association where I commented about their surreal request that people get permission from them before linking to their web site? Apparently, they are so worried about people stealing their golden verbiage that they even occasionally run Copyscape on it — looking for people who might have reproduced their content.

I was alerted to their “Copyscape” review of my December post by Site Meter. (Site Meter shows me the IP address of visitors to my page and, if applicable, the URL of the referring web site.) Here’s the Copyscape report the Alaska Natural History Association received when they checked out my site.

I have to admit, Copyscape is an interesting tool that I hadn’t been aware of. I ran it on my own site and the only copied text I found was where OTHER people had quoted the same Bill Moyers article that I’d quoted. Damn. I guess I’m just not quote-worthy.

Still, when you combine the Copyscape run with the ANHA’s “Linking Policy”(the text of which they seem to have moderated somewhat, by the way), well… it’s all just a little creepy. I mean… It’s the Alaska Natural History Association for Pete’s sake! How much of a problem is plagiarism for them, really?

Oh well. I still think they’re doing good things so, don’t let a little weirdness on their part stop you from visiting their site and buying their books.