I’ll start with the second part of the quote. Let’s start by understanding briefly what plagiarism on this forum means:
It’s the intent to pass somebody else’s content as one’s own. Now this can be done for a wide variety of reasons, as my time here on the forum has shown me. Reasons such as the following would come to mind (non-exhaustive):

-   To pretend to know more than one really knows.
-   To go merit fishing.
-   To create a content with minimal effort.
-   To build-up Activity (again with no effort).
-   To make-up for one’s limitations on posting skills and/or language.

Note that I am not implying that any one of those applies to you here, as I’m simply trying to set a basis for a common understanding on what plagiarism here is.

Now plagiarism can be total (all the content is plagiarized), partial (a small or not so small part), or word-spun based (instead of a copy/paste, it’s a copy/spin/paste).

In order to avoid being accused of plagiarism, it is sufficient to add a reference to the correct sources at the time of creating the post. Some may disagree if that should exonerate all content from falling under the said categorization, but it seems to be the consensus and tradition here. Some people additionally add them simply as a means to reference further reading.

Of course, you may encounter situations whereby the referenced source is really not the source to the content, or that the source is added in the aftermaths to being accused of plagiarism. It falls upon the moderators to determine if a text is plagiarized to some extent, and if the source is present (and possibly, if it was in a timely manner and if it even points to where it should). I figure a report of such accusations to the moderators is a prerequisite, which does not mean it may be debated here and there amongst forum members.

In general terms, most of what we post on the forum is rehashed from somewhere, be it some recent article, video, book, essay or whatever we’ve used as a cognitive source. When one expresses that content in his own words, it is logically not going to fall under the plagiarism categorization.
Historical facts are obviously cognitively obtained from multiple sources at different points in time. Hell, I know people who could depict factual correct historical from the top of their mind, with no need to consult any reference.

The bottom line is not what is reflected per se, but whether it is totally or partially attributable to the exercise of the prior depicted meaning and implications of the forum’s understanding on plagiarism.


Now as to what I meant in my prior post, which you indicate you understood. The question stands on why the extract of text depicted by @nutildah show an apparent exercise of text spinning. You must admit that this does seem like a (small) exercise of text spinning. To make it easier to follow my narrative, I’ll replicate the said post here:

The discussion is not over the historical facts, but rather, specifically, if in order to expose them here, some intended word spinning was used. Bear in mind that, additionally, at the time of publication on the forum, the article bore no reference links.

The second part of the question was simple: Why add references to 5 threads today, are they the real sources used?
Rather that infer a reason, I believe it’s reasonable to ask you openly in a thread such as this, since the above quoted case cropped-up here.