Happy Sunday for everything reading this. I hope to quickly address this well-overdue topic and trend I've been seeing on this site.

Successors.

Let's not forget about the predecessor and successor system. It exists so one can modify, improve and add on to preexisting designs. As many can tell, using this system properly will result in the Auto-Credit bar appearing on the top.

This is acceptable, and encouraged as long as sufficient improvement, modification or, variety has been appended to the original. However, making an unlisted successor chain by yourself and burying the original deep down that chain is plagiarism, and will not be tolerated, and treated as a copy.

I have seen this to avoid Auto-Credit increasingly often of the past few weeks, and I encourage everyone who's doing it to put themselves into the shoes of the original creator, how would you like it if your hard work was taken with credit given nonchalantly in the fine print buried deep down many links... If you have accidently done this, no problem - you may re-upload by changing the predecessor link in the plane's XML file, or just tag a mod.

Unlisteds.

Let me be clear. If something is unlisted, it means the creator willingly shared it to you to trust you to have an exclusive look at it before it goes public or it is finished. It is not a bargain bin of free stuff. The same rules still apply.

If you have obtained an unlisted from another user, and wish to append, modify and upload a variant based on it, I would strongly encourage you to ask the original creator before doing so.

Many people's projects takes months to complete, and uploads unlisted as a backup for themselves, or a milestone to share with their friends. Again, if you were shared an unlisted, you were given trust to have a look at their works early - don't breach their trust by uploading their work before them. This is blatant plagiarism and is absolutely not tolerated.

Side note: The Unlisted Exchange.

While this is not site related, I still feel it is important to address. The Unlisted Exchange is a discord server I created long ago that acts as a repository where users can share their unlisteds. Many cases recently have consisted of people taking these unfinished builds without permission of the author and uploading it themselves. If this server is continuously abused in this way, and we cant respect something as simple as people's opinions and their works - then we can't have nice things and I will shut it down. No more exceptions.

Plagiarism.

I think this game provides a platform for users to carry over the importance of incremental improvements, shared projects and concept of successors and rights/credits in the real world on a small scale.

Personally, I feel like many users' grasp on plagiarism exists only as a strict warning from teachers in secondary or higher education. But I would like to remind everyone that plagiarism is no joke. In higher education and in the working world - especially aviation and engineering, plagiarism is taken in an extremely serious manner. Violation or breach of trust in this regard or submitting others' works is almost immediately a termination of duties and punishment via academic probation, or legal and financial.

Of course it goes without saying that none of these consequences apply on the site, but I would like it if people can consider what effects plagiarism have in the real world so we can better respect author's works and use the Auto-Credit system with more responsibility in mind.

Thanks for taking some time out of your day to read this. I know this does not apply to most users, but a friendly reminder never hurts. :)