Talk:Pál Schmitt academic misconduct controversy

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Help needed at Pál Schmitt and perhaps changes here[edit]

There's a problem at Pál Schmitt which perhaps someone here could help address. Currently that article states:

and concluded that despite the "procedural shortcomings," the dissertation did formally satisfy the practices of the time. The committee's report, issued on 27 March, blamed the Testnevelési Egyetem for not revealing the copied sources, but fell short of putting any blame on Schmitt ("the author may have thought that his dissertation satisfied the requirements").

and then goes on to mention how his title was stripped. But as I mentioned there, that's rather confusing. Why would they even worry about if he believed his dissertation satisfied the requirements if it actually did? It seems a moot point. And why was his title stripped if he satisfied the requirements? (And without wanting to be too WP:Soapboxy, did a dissertation primarily copied from other sources, whether or not those source were identified and properly cited, really satisfy the requirements?) Most of the sources are Hungarian so I can't check them myself.

Currently this article doesn't mention their conclusion the dissertation satisfied the requirements, instead it suggests they found he may have genuinely believed it satisfied the requirements partially because his supervisors failed to address some obvious problems (the lack of citations and references).

Or to put it a different way, this article seems to suggest their finding was he did not meet the requirements, but it may not have been primarily his fault which makes a lot more sense then the other article (whether fair or not is a different matter and not up for discussion). In fact, to me this article seems to imply that the lack of citations and references itself (even without the plagarism) was potentially enough to disqualify his dissertation, which wouldn't surprise me. Of course if they did find his dissertation satisfied the requirements at the time, this article should mention that. And hopefully explain why he lost it in that case, and also why they cared about the whether he believe it met the requirements when it actually did.

Nil Einne (talk) 12:33, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I added a more detailed description of what is known about the fact-finding committee's report. It is a fine example of newspeak: obviously all of it is copied, but that's how things were done back then at the University of Physical Education, and if anybody, it is the advisor and the the sis committee that is to blame for not detecting the plagiarism, and leading Schmitt believe that his thesis was up to the standards [sic!]. I suspect that they expected to have the Ministry of Education (or its long-named current equivalent) to rule that the University of Physical Education is now defunct, and if it comes to light that there was a problem with a thesis awarded there, then the minister has the legal authority to revoke the degree. A website reported that their source at Semmelweis cited a specific article of law to them, which is about the revocation of titles in case of no longer existing higher institutions of learning. They miscalculated, because the minister sent back the report without even opening the envelope. (The problem is that the article does not apply here because the University of Physical Education fused into Semmelweis.) As soon as the report bounced back to them, Semmelweis had a Senate assembly where they revoked the degree. Schmitt plans to attack the university's legal authority in revoking his title. Szentendrei (talk) 06:00, 6 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]