About a week ago, plagiarism was found in the articles of Notabot (Fheenix on devtome). It was just after the receiver files were made, so it was too late to regenerate the files. I talked with Notabot, and it turned out he hired a writer who was copying text. He was really sorry about it and wanted to quit. It was many articles, about 220,000 words worth, at an average of 300,000 devcoins per share, it's about 66 million devcoins. Notabot then deleted all those articles from devtome. Notabot was also selling his devcoins, so he has few left and full restitution is impossible. I judged that his repentance was sincere, and so I suggested a way to atone, following in spirit:
http://www.devtome.com/doku.php?id=conditional_forgiveness
Notabot would stop selling his devcoins, and send all but 5 million back to people at the end of December, and then send all but 5 million back at the end of the round 30 payment at the end of January. For a year, round 31 to round 42 inclusive, a third of his earnings would be sent back.
This might seem like an easy way off, because this will not pay back all the devcoins. However, it is much harder and more expensive than simply quitting.
I think this a reasonable atonement, however if a majority of admins don't want this then it's off.
http://www.devtome.com/doku.php?id=conditional_forgiveness
Notabot would stop selling his devcoins, and send all but 5 million back to people at the end of December, and then send all but 5 million back at the end of the round 30 payment at the end of January. For a year, round 31 to round 42 inclusive, a third of his earnings would be sent back.
This might seem like an easy way off, because this will not pay back all the devcoins. However, it is much harder and more expensive than simply quitting.
I think this a reasonable atonement, however if a majority of admins don't want this then it's off.
For prevention in the future:
I know there are people who search content for plagiarism, since right after I put this up http://devtome.com/doku.php?id=the_trap I got a PM about how I needed to take it down because it was also uploaded to Smashwords, which has a copyright notice. I explained that authors retain copyright at Smashwords and it was already licensed under CC BY-SA, so everything was fine.
Is each and every article run through a web-based plagiarism checker, or do new writers get checked and then there are periodic spot checks? It might be helpful to post this information on the main 'get set up with Devtome' pages so that people can be aware of the process, and it might help discourage people intending the work the system.
As for the penance, I'm a little confused about the 'all but 5 million' part. Notabot later said they would send all earnings and holding nothing back. It does seem better to be held accountable instead of quitting, but I'll leave it to the admins to figure out the particulars. Notabot sounded sincere in their explanation, and I like to believe there will be follow-through, but I also wonder if there is some kind of guarantee that can be placed.
On a note not pertaining directly to Notabot/Fheenix, but plagiarism relating to open-source in general: The good-faith nature of free culture licenses relies on the fact that if someone claims someone else's work as their own, they get called on it and it also depreciates their reputation. This disincentive is less powerful when someone doesn't have a solid, unified web presence (the pseudo-anonymity of screen names). I suppose the only answer I can think of is that if a community acts in integrity in general, and acts in integrity and fairness when cases like this arise, it encourages those who act in good-faith to stick around, and those who don't to drop out.
Please PM return address so I can return it. 
