A thief in your midst...

**pangris** · February 8th, 2007, 01:15 AM

It recently came to my attention that a forum member here, "GRIZZLYBEAR", plagiarized a review I wrote about a trip to Thunder Ranch.

It is aggravating to spend thousands of dollars to go to a class, take time off the line to get your pics, spend hours and hours writing several drafts... just to have someone else claim it as thier own work.

It is just disappointing that a veteran of our armed forces and TR grad would steal someone else's intellectual property.

If he wanted to promote the school, all he had to do was say he took the class, link my review and say he agreed with my opinion.

The thread below is where the review was posted.

http://www.pafoa.org/forum/ranges-18...er-course.html

**danp** · February 8th, 2007, 02:03 AM

I will alert GRIZZ to the existence of your posts and let him respond if that's ok with you. We can move forward from there.

**pangris** · February 8th, 2007, 02:24 AM

Not a problem at all. I've already PM'd him. When reading the reviews side by side, there is no doubt that he stole the work.

As far as where to go from here? I don't know how he can un-ring a bell that shows his lack of integrity, but by all means, reply. There isn't much else to do but own up to the theft at this point.

Paul

**pangris** · February 8th, 2007, 03:50 AM

This really says it all. The internet is amazing.

581 matched words, about 60% is identical.

**phillyd2** · February 8th, 2007, 08:09 AM

Lets him from him directly but if it is to be assumed that everything in red were the same in both reviews then I think you may be jumping the gun a bit. Most of the highlighted sentences seem pretty damn generic statements to me.

Do you have a link to your review?

**danp** · February 8th, 2007, 10:41 AM

pangris' original post can be found here, dated from July 4th 2006:
http://smith-wessonforum.com/eve/for...441#6431081441

**pangris** · February 8th, 2007, 02:16 PM

Originally Posted by phillyd2

Lets him from him directly but if it is to be assumed that everything in red were the same in both reviews then I think you may be jumping the gun a bit. Most of the highlighted sentences seem pretty damn generic statements to me.

Do you have a link to your review?

The reviews are almost identical. The stuff in red is anything over six words tha is EXACTLY the same.

That doesn't include sentences where he changed the gun used, etc etc.

You tell me if this is generic -

Grizz -

The lecture block is full of food for thought. Clint is a gifted speaker and the lecture alone is worth the price of admission.

Me -

The lecture block is chock full of food for thought. Clint is a gifted public speaker and TR grads will tell you the lecture alone is worth the price of admission.

Grizz -
On the range, things progress quickly. I've come to believe that the purpose of day one in any and all classes I have attended is used to determine where the class is as a whole, the fastest a class can move is as safely as the slowest student can perform the drills...

Me -
on the range, things progress quickly. I've come to realize that the purpose of day one is to determine where the class is as a whole. In the end, the fastest a class can move is as safely as the slowest student can perform the drills...

Grizz - Day two starts out with a quick warm up of the previous material. When the basics down pretty well, you move on to the skills that you will/might need in a fight, starting with one handed drills. Once we had shooting one handed down, we learn how to manipulate the revolver one handed – this is done with both strong and weak hand. While it isn't fast, you can indeed draw, fire, unload, and reload your revolver with nothing but your weak hand and a knee.

Me - Day two starts out with a quick warm up of the previous day's material. Since we have the basics down pretty well, we move on to the skills that you might need in a fight, starting with one handed drills. Once we had shooting one handed down, we learn how to manipulate the gun one handed – both strong hand and weak hand. While it isn't fast, you can indeed draw, fire, unload, and reload your revo with nothing but your weak hand and a knee.

Grizz - There is a technique to drawing safely on the ground. Once the gun clears leather, firing while on your back then working to standing – firing all the while – is the goal. Once everyone demonstrated reasonable proficiency at how to un-turtle yourself, we started on our stomachs. Firing from prone, rollover prone, etc. is challenging but with some practice you can hit just about as well from the grounded positions as you can do from standing.

Me - There is a specific technique to drawing safely on the ground. Once the gun clears leather, firing while on your back then working to standing – firing all the while – is the goal. Once everyone demonstrated reasonable proficiency at how to un-turtle yourself, we started on our stomachs. Firing from prone, rollover prone, etc ad nauseum is challenging but with some practice you can hit just as well as you do from standing

Is the phrase "Once everyone demonstrated reasonable proficiency at how to un-turtle yourself, we started on our stomachs" pretty damn generic?

Grizz -
The end of day two, is a marksmanship drill on steel targets (I am an animal on steel, for me this is the fun part). Starting a 15 yards, we moved right and back five yards at a time. You get one shot and one shot only. Steel doesn't lie - it rings or it doesn't… back at a 45 yards, I was able to hit the steel with my S&W J-Frame Centennial in .32 H&R Magnum, despite the 2" barrel, fixed sights, and the double action only firing mechanism. This is shows the level of instruction at Thunder Ranch.

Me - The end of day two, we shot a marksmanship drill on steel targets. Starting a 15 yards, we moved right and back five yards at a time. You get one shot and one shot only. Steel doesn't lie - it rings or it doesn't… back at a 47 yards, I was able to hit steel with my trusty S&W 642 despite the 2" barrel, fixed sights, and an unmolested double action only. this is a testament to the level of the instruction...

When you look at not only exact quotes, but sentences where one or two words are changed it is close 80% the same.

Read them side by side - or like I did, with anti-plag software such as WCopyfind 2.6 - and there is no doubt.