Important Update: First off, thanks for having the site's back folks. It is much appreciated. The e-mails have been good and hilarious although I think the ones calling him a hack touched a nerve. Secondly, Dave Fuller replied to my e-mail and explained why he thought he did not need to cite the site since Hokej.cz was the original source although he did use Romdgpce's translation to clean up (and having checked it [Editor's Note: LOL] there would have needed to have been a lot of cleaning up) his own work. Needless to say, I made my position clear and used the TSN.ca article as an explanation for why, on the internet, you can't pretend that you were divinely inspired even if your source is an angelic commenter. Going forward it seems like Dave is going to be clearer which is all we want to see. But I am guessing you'll all be watching. Notice how the important updates are at the top...
Three days ago, an article was run in the Czech newspaper Hokej by columnist Jan Vacek that included a transcript of an interview between Mr. Vacek and one Frantisek Kaberle Sr.; the father of current Maple Leafs Tomas Kaberle. In it, Mr. Kaberle comes off as PO'd at the Maple Leafs, makes his dislike of Coach Ron Wilson very evident, and basically states that he is very unhappy with the way things were handled in regards to him son. A little too harsh and frank? Perhaps. But it's a parent worrying about what's best for his son, something we all would do.
The article was found and translated into English by PPP user, and close friend of user blurr1974, Romdgpce, a Canuck now living in the Czech Republic about an hour south of Prague. (I'm sorry we didn't get together for beers when I was over there in March. Next time.) Fortunately for the users of PPP, the finding and translation of foreign language articles with rather valuable insight and breaking news has become commonplace as our members occupy countries all across the globe from the Czech Republic, to Finland, New Zealand, Japan, England, and the Netherlands. One more than one occasion, user sleza has translated articles from Swedish and Finnish websites that often times break news a full day before the MSM in Canada gets wind of it.
Why do I bring this all up? Well I'm sure many of you remember the big snafu last October when an article by Puck Daddy Greg Wyshynski was plagiarized nearly word for word by some moron over at Bleacher Report. It caused quite a stir, and helped bring focus to plagiarism in the blogging communtiy. Hell, even our best buddy Down Goes Brown has been plagiarized before. (Ed Note: Nobody would dare plagiarize CH because he's a grammar Nazi doodoo head.)
Now you can count Pension Plan Puppets among those blogging greats who have their published articles ripped off by another. Only this time the offending party is not some anonymous basement dweller, but rather a bonafide member of the Main Stream Media. Ladies and gentleman, today's article by Dave Fuller over at www.torontosun.com. How many Czech to English translators do you think the Sun employs? I'm going with zero. So where do you think Mr. Fuller got this translated text of the Czech language article? I'm guessing he got it from here. And that my friends doesn't sit well with us.
Now we're not looking to cause any trouble here for Mr. Fuller or the Toronto Sun, but what we do want it some attribution when it comes to stories and articles like this. Is it really that hard to put in note saying "As translated by Pension Plan Puppets user Romdgpce"?
PPP himself has asked me to ask you to email Dave Fuller (dave.fuller@sunmedia.ca) asking him to give proper attribution to the sources of his articles in the future whether it be PPP, Puck Daddy, whomever. Bloggers are slowly beginning to out-scoop their main stream counterparts, and it's time they get the recognition they deserve.
Now PPP has also asked me that you keep your emails to Mr. Fuller polite and devoid of profanity or personal attacks as he knows how passionate you all can get. Also, once you do email Dave, go ahead and post the text of your email into this thread if you so choose.
Thanks. And once again, thanks to user Romdgpce for his scoop on this interesting story.