The saga of the suspension and reinstatement of my account at ezinearticles.com continues.

I submitted an article. Ezine suspended my account and accused me of plagiarism. I showed them proof I did not plagiarize. They reinstated my account. We have been trading emails since then. I am not satisfied with their responses.

Perhaps some day soon I will copy and paste our correspondence. If there’s enough interest, I’ll do the work necessary to inform everyone. In the meanwhile, here’s a summary:

When the Ezine editors get a submission which they believe is plagiarized they suspend the account of the submitter. Then they give the submitter the opportunity to prove her or his innocence. I have called this a ’shoot first and ask questions later’ policy.

From what I understand of their emails, Ezine justifies this policy by claiming it protects their system from being accused of plagiarism.

I have written back to Ezine stating that protecting against plagiarism is a laudable goal, but there are additional issues in play.

An article submitter might have submitted many articles in the past which have been screened and accepted by Ezine. While these screened and accepted articles are available to everyone on the net, Ezine itself benefits from the articles. The articles appear on a page  which also has advertising. If someone clicks the advertising, Ezine gets money.

If Ezine decides to suspend an author’s account because, let’s say for the sake of this discussion, the 63rd article the author submitted is suspected of being plagiarized, every article the author has written and has been screened until #63 is now also suspended. In other words, the body of work of the author, not just the single suspected article, is taken away from the author and placed in a locked box. The author gets no benefit from work which has previously been screened and accepted.

While the author gets no benefit, Ezine gets benefit. From Ezine’s end it is possible Ezine might suspend the author’s entire work from their screen. But the internet is not instantaneous. Let’s say Ezine suspends an account on a Monday. The author’s articles still appear out in cyberspace long after the suspension on that fateful Monday. Let’s say that on Wednesday a surfer finds one of the author’s articles after a Google search. The surfer might click on one of the advertisments and Ezine might gets some money as a result of the click. The author gets nothing but a nasty email from Ezine.

I have claimed in one of my emails to Ezine that their policy of suspending first and asking questions later amounts to theft. They steal something from the author and benefit from their theft.

Note that all the while the author’s single suspect article has not yet been PROVEN to be plagiarized. Ezine suspends accounts on the basis of suspicion, not evidence. But during the pendency of the suspension ‘trial’ the author loses control of her or his article while Ezine gains potential benefit.

Note also that the article which Ezine suspects might be plagiarised does not yet appear on their website and is not yet available to the public. The article has been submitted by the author and sits on the desk of an Ezine editor prior to approval and publication. Ezine has not been hurt in the least if an author submits a plagiarised article, yet Ezine penalizes an author regardless. Only the author get hurt, not Ezine, if an author has actually or is suspected of submitting a plagiarised article.

Until Ezine finds a more equitable way of dealing with plagiarism and the suspicion of plagiarism I will continue my correspondence with them. If they fail to take corrective action I will take more serious steps to get them to change their inequitable policy.

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Tags: ezine, ezinearticles, inequitable policy, plagiarise, plaigarism