Talk:Central place theory

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Plagiarism

The formatting and sometimes exact wording of this article looks like it was copied from the third external think (a pdf from thinkgeography.org). Someone have the time to investigate/rewrite/cite properly? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.32.4.164 (talk) 04:30, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Looking into it. Awadewit (talk) 19:55, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I've looked at this in some detail and I find it unlikely that the thinkgeography pdf was plagiarised. No specefic examples were given but I assume the "Building the theory", "Predictions of the theory" and "Evaluation" sections are the ones in question. This material was moved from the Walter Christaller article as it existed on 21 May 2005.[1] The material there was unsourced. A search of the Internet Archive (archive.org) shows only one version of the pdf, from 28 Sep 2007, although it is possible the pdf existed in 2005. Is is also possible the pdf was written using the Wikipedia article as a source.

The structure of the material is somewhat similar, but will likely be similar in any writing on the theory, since it builds in a logical manner: basic principles, simplest first, structure of the theory, predictions, shortcomings. The list of assumptions is similar but note for instance that the equal transport cost assumption is written up in a completely different manner.

It's quite possible that the original writing copied someone's textbook or course notes but we can't tell for sure what that source was. It's also possible that the original writing was, well, "original" and the similarities are a result of there being only so many ways to explain a concept in a logical manner. More sourcing would be good (more sourcing is almost always good) and the thinkgeography source would be acceptable, but I don't think we can say there was any plagiarism. However if you have specific areas of concern, please describe them in more detail and we can have another look. Franamax (talk) 19:57, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Update: the source in question definitely existed before our article was first written, hosted here from at least 21 May 2003. I now have to revise my opinion a little bit, there is a possibility the wording of the "assumptions" was copied, even though the structuring is different in places. It is still also possible that this wording is the standard presentation. Even if we wanted to add attribution, there is now the question of where that document actually originated. We shouldn't be attributing a source if that source is itself a copy of someone else's work. I may ask over at the Economics wikiproject. Franamax (talk) 20:25, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that it's a copy. There are some similarities in wording, such as "isotropic (all flat)" but not much more than that. When describing the assumptions that a simple abstract model is based on, there's not really much wiggle room - there are bound to be strong similarities, certain keywords are likely to be reused &c, even if two people devise texts completely independently. If there were similarities in other bits of the text (for instance, in the choice of real-world examples) then that would be much more suspicious, but I don't think that's the case here... bobrayner (talk) 21:02, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this - I really appreciate it your thoroughness. Hopefully this article will be improved through the Public Policy Initiative sometime this year! Awadewit (talk) 00:44, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

CPT & SIM

"Following a thorough investigation via computer simulation, they reached important theoretical and practical conclusions." Which are??? Let's not leave this hanging. Referencing legitimate research should cite the researh conclusions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by American In Brazil (talk • contribs) 01:22, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

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