The title kind of says it all, originality is pretty much dead, and not just on Minecraft. In the past few months, on the forums especially, I've seen thread, after thread, after thread, after thread copied or altered to be something else but is still basically the same exact thing as the thread is was copied from. I won't be pointing out any specific threads, but you can take a look around and see what I'm talking about. Now, is this completely a bad thing? No, at least not all of the time, there are a few reasons I could think of that would be good reasons to copy a thread: The thread was locked by the owner, but many people liked it. (Of course you'd ask permission from for Original Poster to re-post though) The thread had a good idea and/or purpose but wasn't put together as well as it should be or just died off. Honestly, if a good thread did die out because the owner could no longer maintain it, or I found a thread that had an amazing idea and/or purpose but it wasn't put together as well as it could of been, I'd either try to help the owner out or re-post the thread giving credit to the OP, but this doesn't happen all of the time. There are some threads that are okay to copy because it doesn't really make a big difference: Auction Templates (Say someone is auctioning the exact same item as you, you could just copy their template and save yourself a few minutes) Selling/Buying Thread Templates (Same reason as Auctions, and as long as they didn't apply extra fanciness to their thread, and you changed it up a little, I think it'd be okay to use) Onto all of the copied threads and why it's not okay. If you go to the gaming section, and I can not be the only one to notice this, you will see the same copied name from the "let's talk about skyrim" thread over and over again, and if you keep scrolling you will find 5-6 more threads with the "Let's talk about _____" that were posted long after the Skyrim thread. This is a bit of a problem, I see why the name is copied, it's an okay name for a thread that is focused on a specific game, but you could make your thread stand out even more by coming up with a name that hasn't been used a hundred other times. I could think of plenty of alternative thread titles that would be original and sound better than "Let's Talk" [SHARE] Pac-Man Nation [SHARE] Minecraft Legends - Share you MC experiences! [SHARE] Grand Theft Auto Police Scanner (Players would share their favorite crimes committed on GTA) [SHARE] Call of Duty Kill Feed - Favorite Kills, Games, and more! Honestly, coming up with an original title isn't that hard. This doesn't just happen with the "Let's Talk" threads either, I've seen plenty of other thread names and ideas copied plenty too, this was just a good example. Why is this a problem? Empire Minecraft is a pretty original server, I haven't come across any other server in my time like it and I don't expect to. But I can't say the same for the forums, I do see a lot of original threads, but I see a lot of copied threads as well, they may not be copied, but I've found other threads just like them. Let's make the forums as original as our server. Real Life You don't see much originality in the real world either and I believe that contributes to some of the unoriginality in other places. You can go listen to music, such as rap, and hear most of the same lyrics or messages over and over again, or watch a movie and basically predict the entire story line from the first 20 minutes of the movie.
My good friend, welcome to a thing called "life". Businesses do it all the time, they go in the same business as their friends and they make that said product. But there are original things in that said business that wasn't yet thought of.
It's words on a screen. As long as it's not breaking the rules as far as content, really who cares. If it bothers you that much then walk away.
You are complaining about originality in forums? Nothing better going on in life, then? If you want new and original, go find a few books you have never read. The forums are not going to contain unique titles for the most part because when something works it will be imitated or copied. Such is life. This community is made up of hundreds of thousands of people participating in conversations about things that interest them. It is not a school paper or a news article, etc. Most things can come down to either personal opinion or a statement of fact that can not be presented any different. The "Let's talk about +insert noun+" format works. It is succinct in providing the purpose and the subject in the fewest words needed. We are on a forum not in an English class on Blackboard. Take a minute and evaluate what really matters and if you want originality, find the forums that are dedicated to story telling about something less popular in the gaming culture.
As long has it is not copy righted then copying is allowed.........It's just the law but I agree with you...
For clarity, this forum is in itself unoriginal. It is just another of the hundreds of complaint threads. A few minutes poking around these or any other forum will reveal the same format. It is all minutia to fill in the void of boredom. If there is nothing relevant to discuss, create a topic from nothing that in no way improves the discussion. This thread is going to quickly devolve into bickering and spam posts to increase post count. If this was your intention, it will work. However, if you intended to have a thought provoking conversation, you certainly missed the target. Turn on the news once in a while and then discuss the meaningful stories with family, friends and even strangers on the internet. Just don't expect everyone to agree with your opinion. Some people will just argue with you about facts because they always have to take the opposing side of any issue that is brought up. No matter if they agree with their own words or not. (Personally, my mother is one of these people. She will argue with a rock in order to win the argument if no living person agrees with her.)
Originality is great and all, but I'd rather people understand what my thread is about without having them take a few seconds extra in doing so. I don't understand what you mean by copying.. if someone has a "Let's Talk about Skyrim" thread, and I would rather talk about Angry Birds, I would use the same "Let's Talk about—" because it's concise and gets the job done. In my personal experience, I glance over the thread titles and that dictates whether or not I click on it. If it takes me more than half a second to comprehend the title, it's probably not worth my time. It's not copying, it's being efficient.. and please, these are forums. Complaint threads aren't really new either.
I find it hilariously ironic that the OP blatantly stole the thread title from this old thread: emc.gs/t/15531 Even the capitalization of the word "Dead" is the same. Quite obviously a rip-off.
Also stumbled across another forum post with EXACTLY the same title as this one on another forum: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.263702-Originality-is-Dead OP is really unoriginal when he posts a thread about this topic...
Just because someone borrow from someone else's idea to create a new concept doesn't necessarily mean that it's not original. I think that's how we develop ideas and learn from one another. How else would we, as a human race, have gotten this far?
