If you're a regular visitor to TheForce.Net, you'll notice that a lot of other sites post some of the info that originates here. Most of them are polite and put a link to us and note where they got it. That's cool. We appreciate it because it helps them out and it spreads the word about us. Plus, we make a special effort to link to others. We expect no less from ourselves.

But here's a little something that you might get a laugh out of. A few months ago I created a prequel picture. I took the picture from the Official Site of Anakin and Shmi eating dinner at the table. As a joke, I scanned a spork (half spoon, half spork) and added it into Shmi's hand. It turned out beautifully if I do say so myself.

Well, today I was surfing around the other prequel sites. I went by two different sites and looked at their prequel picture sections. They had already copied the Bothan Spy picture that we posted Friday. There was no mention that it came from here. Then, lo and behold, they had my spork picture! There it was, in all it's glory. They simply had it posted and didn't even mention that Shmi was holding a spork!!

They had been so wrapped up in copying stuff from us that they didn't know what they were copying!

That was realitively minor. However, we've recently been dealing with another problem. As some of you know, Rich Handley had a page that reviewed ALL the old Marvel Star Wars Comics. Rich used to have a guy come by regularly and compliment his site. That was several months ago. Now flash forward to today. Rich wanted to add his comic reviews to TheForce.Net. However, we found out that another site had taken ALL of Rich's reviews, word for word, and posted them on their site. There was no mention of Rich at all. Turns out that it was the same guy that came by Rich's site every day. Well, Rich wrote the guy and politely asked him to take it down. (I might not have been so polite, but Rich was pure cool.) The guy replied, "I don't know who you are." Rich reminded him who he was. The guy replied, "You must be mistaken." Well, Rich had a bunch of old e-mails that proved it was the same guy. So the guy is refusing to take the stuff down.

Pretty stupid, eh?

We have many, many more examples like this, but there's no use in getting into them here. Now some of you may be thinking "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery". Well, that's true, but there's a difference between imitation and passing someone else's hard work off as your own. That's called plagarism. I've heard many excuses for this. Some include "I don't have the software I need" or "I don't have the hardware I need" or "I don't have good contacts for information". My answer to that is that you don't need fancy graphics or unlimited drive space or scanners to have a great site. All you need is good original content! Long time readers will remember when this site was The Star Wars Page at Texas A&M. Back then we only had a few pictures and tons of text. I think today you'll find, despite the fancy graphics, we're still relying on content in order to keep people coming back.

And it is not content we take from other sites.

That's the key to the success of this site. As far as good contacts go, I hold the "If you code it, they will come" theory. Set yourself apart from the rest and good contacts will come to you. So will psychos, but that's another editorial.

The casual reader is probably saying, "Why should I care?" Well, doesn't it get awful boring to see the exact same stuff on every site? The more sites I see doing their own thing, the more interesting it is for me as a Star Wars fan.

So we don't mind you referring to our content, but please say where you got it. And pass up on the easy 'right click' and create some cool original stuff. I'm ready to surf around and see what everyone can use their own talents to create. After all, Star Wars fans are the coolest, smartest fans on the net.

Scott Chitwood

RECENT EDITORIALS

04/08/03 - Christopher Knight - Oscars Give Short Shrift to Fantasy
03/17/03 - Joshua Griffin - Put the REAL Classics on DVD
01/29/03 - Joshua Griffin - Imagine a Star Wars HALO Videogame
01/14/03 - Michael Potts - Clone Wars: Expanded Universe Editorial

2002

09/03/02 - Joshua Griffin - Digital Pirates Sink Ships
05/17/02 - Chris Knight - Digital Projection: The Audience Is Watching... And Waiting
04/11/02 - TFN Staff - Thumbs Up, Tumbs Down for SW2 Marketing
03/08/02 - TFN Staff - Clone War Trailer Reaction
01/13/02 - TFN Staff - TFN Reaction to SNL N'Sync Skit
01/03/02 - TFN Staff - Boy Band Jedi Reactions

2001

12/12/01 - Chris Knight - Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
12/07/01 - Jeff Yankey - All I Want for Christmas
11/17/01 - Guest Editorial - Ritual and Romance of Episode II
10/04/01 - Guest Editorial - Why Episode I is Brilliant
10/02/01 - Guest Editorial - Episode I is Star Wars
09/30/01 - Guest Editorial - Why I Loved Episode I
09/25/01 - Joshua Griffin - Episode II: Make It or Break It Time
08/21/01 - Chris Knight - SW2: Attack On The Soul?
07/13/01 - Joshua Griffin - Special Time for SW Fans
05/14/01 - Joshua Griffin - AlphaCon is Finished
05/09/01 - Chris Knight - In The Beginning... Star Wars Comes To A Wired World
04/17/01 - Joshua Griffin - Global TFN - International Outlook on Star Wars
03/14/01 - Chris Knight - Palpatine vs. Hitler: Prequel Speculation Runs Amok!
02/13/01 - Chris Knight - "The Force" of Love: A Valentine's Day Editorial
01/17/01 - Chris Knight - Star Wars Could Continue... As Television Anthology
01/11/01 - Guest Editorial - A Review of A New Hope After the Prequels
01/07/01 - Guest Editorial - No - We Want the DVDs Now!
01/04/01 - Chris Knight - New Digital Disciple Says "Lets Wait On Star Wars DVDs"

2000

12/21/00 - Joshua Griffin - Is George Lucas Really a Genius?
11/18/00 - Joshua Griffin - To Spoil or Not to Spoil
11/06/00 - Joshua Griffin - The Power of the Election
11/01/00 - Chris Knight - Why Isn't There A Star Wars Postage Stamp?
08/17/00 - Jason McCabe Calacanis - The SW2 Fan Trailer (guest editorial)
07/14/00 - Joshua Griffin/Scott Chitwood - TFN's Spoiler Policy
06/20/00 - Chris Knight - Star Wars and the Saga of Life
05/13/00 - TFN Staff - TheForce.net Wish List
04/08/00 - Special Guest Editorial by Skybaugh - Worth the Wait
03/30/00 - Joshua Griffin - What Star Wars Has Won
03/19/00 - Joshua Griffin - The Next Denver Celebration
03/14/00 - Joshua Griffin - Fair Weather Fans
03/07/00 - Joshua Griffin - Predicting the Academy Award Winners
02/22/00 - Joshua Griffin - Who should profit from Star Wars?
02/16/00 - Joshua Griffin - Episode I and the Academy
01/27/00 - TFN Staff - Flaming TFN over DVD
01/25/00 - Chris Knight - Motivations of the Sith
01/20/00 - TFN Staff - Leonardo DiCaprio as Anakin?
01/10/00 - Joshua Griffin - World-Wide Star Wars
01/03/00 - Joshua Griffin - Mass Merchandising Menace

1999

12/13/99 - Joshua Griffin - Questioning Star Wars
11/22/99 - Joshua Griffin - Trusting Internet Rumors
11/11/99 - Paul Davidson - Rise of the Empire: China and TPM
10/28/99 - Scott Chitwood - Signs There Probably Won't Be a Sequel Trilogy
10/18/99 - Joshua Griffin - Why not Episode I DVD?
10/15/99 - Joshua Griffin - What Makes SW Fans Special
10/01/99 - Joshua Griffin - The PG Rating of TPM
09/07/99 - Scott Chitwood and Paul Ens - Comic and Book Wishlist
08/18/99 - TF.N Team - Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down on Episode I Everything
07/11/99 - Joshua Griffin - Parody Site isn't that funny
07/10/99 - Brian Linder - The Jar Jar Factor
06/08/99 - Joshua Griffin & Chris Knight - Why is Jar Jar in Episode I?
05/06/99 - Darin Smith - Return of the Child
03/09/99 - Scott Chitwood and Paul Ens - A Chat with LFL
02/07/99 - Amy Pronovost - Convention Romances, Can they Work?
01/23/99 - Scott Chitwood - What's up with Prowse?
01/01/99 - Scott Chitwood - Uncle George and Episode 1

1998

11/23/98 - Scott Chitwood - What Lucasfilm is doing right
11/05/98 - Scott Chitwood - Prequel Spoilers
09/28/98 - David Coates - First thoughts on the the Episode 1 Title
06/19/98 - Scott Chitwood - How Godzilla affected Episode I
04/09/98 - Scott Chitwood - The Art of the Space Battle
04/09/98 - Scott Chitwood - DIVX SUX
02/26/98 - Scott Chitwood - X-WING TV Series Should Fly
02/09/98 - Scott Chitwood - Xerox Sites
02/03/98 - Scott Chitwood - Canon Issue, Part 2
01/07/98 - Terrence Daniels - Canon = Personal Preference

1997

12/17/97 - Darin Smith - Everything I need to know...
11/15/97 - Chris Kivlehan - Six Episodes or Nine Episodes?
11/07/97 - Scott Chitwood - How do you solve a problem like Ewan?
11/03/97 - Scott Chitwood - How we get our Prequel 'Spy' info
10/22/97 - Paul Davidson - Trek vs. Wars