For those who are not already aware, for at least the past year or so, an account on Quora using the name of “Kevin Richardson” was posting extremely top-notch answers about history. Kevin’s credential claimed that he has a PhD in history from the University of Texas at Austin. It has recently, though, been exposed that this “Kevin Richardson” is not a real person, but rather a fraudulent account created under a fake name. Moreover, every single answer that “Kevin” ever posted was completely plagiarized word-for-word from other sources. Most of his answers were stolen from writers at r/AskHistorians. The moderators of that subreddit are the ones who investigated and exposed him.
In this post, I would first like to discuss just how pitiful Quora’s moderation against plagiarism really is, how “Kevin” managed to fool the entire community of history writers on Quora (myself included), and how his fraud was eventually exposed. I am also going to present a list of people who write excellent answers about history who I can confirm are not plagiarists. Finally, I will explain how I personally came to write on Quora and why I have so far continued to do so, despite (among other things) the endemic plagiarism.
Continue reading “Plagiarism on Quora: The Latest Scandal”