Web Design Book - Number 1 in 1 day

Wow!

In a little over 24 hours, my post on Daniel Gibbins has gone from not even existing, to being top of Google.

I’m gobsmacked!

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Daniel+Gibbins

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I found the following written by evangelical plagiarist Daniel Gibbins on the amusingly titled “Church Web Designer’s Forum” (they have a FORUM? how many of them are there?):

Back in the day when I was an English teacher, I used to use Comic Sans for a lot of presentations and on-screen text that was going to be displayed on an electronic whiteboard. It’s a particularly good font…

Church Website features - Page 2 - The Church Webmasters’ Forum

Sweet Jesus, it gets worse!!!

(apologies to any non-plagiarizing Christians reading this for the blatant blasphemy, but the pun was too good to miss)

No wonder the bloke steals stuff out of people’s books .. when he writes anything original it’s a complete load of b*ll*ks!

Anybody who thinks Comic Sans is a good font under ANY circumstances has no right to call themselves a designer .. let alone an EXPERT one!!!

I wrote my post on Daniel Gibbins 24 hours ago and already, 4 of the top 6 posts on Google for his name relate to the fact he’s a liar.

I’m impressed how quickly Google’s indexed this story and also awestruck by the power of Google.

All I can say, is that I’m glad I’m not in his position. Luckily, he deserves everything he gets, but it’s certainly food for thought.

http://tinyurl.com/2q4omv

One thing I think it really highlights, is the power of having a site that’s regularly updated, so that Google indexes it at short intervals.

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Here’s what the BBC homepage looked like when it launched, back in 1997

After having spoken at length with Daniel Gibbins, I would like to formally retract the following article.

Mr Gibbins has told me several things in confidence, so I am unable to offer a full explanation of why I no longer believe Mr Gibbins is “fake” or a “liar”.

However, I would like to make it clear that:

a) I now believe Mr Gibbins is a good, but naive person
b) He was taken in by somebody else with malicious intent and made some schoolboy errors, but is not a bad person
c) Nobody should choose not to do business with Mr Gibbins on the basis of this article
d) I would like anybody else who has written an article about this to remove it, as this is unfair on Mr Gibbins.
————-

or How to fake it as a web design “expert”

According to the Christian tradition, and to Brad Pitt, there are 7 deadly sins. One of them is sloth .. or lazyness.

One form of lazyness is copying .. or as it’s also known plagiarism.

I was doing a vanity search recently, and discovered an article which looked similar to something I’d written. Very similar. Identical in fact.

The original article was written by me and appears on pages 74 and 75 of my book, with the title “Web Design is Product Design”.

The plagiarized article appears on a website called “The Church Web Design Project”.

It is stolen - word for word - from my book.

From memory, there is something the Bible about “thou shalt not steal”, so this doesn’t seem a very Christian thing to do.

I was particularly intrigued to find a link to Ezine Articles, an article marketing website, on the page. I followed the link and found that the same person who had stolen my article to use on his own, supposedly Christian, website had also posted various other articles - many of them by me on Ezine Articles.

The person’s name is Daniel Gibbins. He was claiming to be the writer and an “expert” on web design. According to his bio:

Daniel Gibbins is the Managing Director of a Norfolk based Web Development Company, Cortina Web Solutions (http://www.cortinawebsolutions.co.uk), covering Web Design, SEO, Hosting and Copywriting services. He has Qualified Teacher Status in the UK and is registered member of the General Teaching Council of England. He holds advanced qualifications and degrees in English Literature & Language, Computer Science and History.

Daniel has recently set up a Christian based organisation called The Church Website Design Project, supported by a number of clergy and lay Christians throughout the UK. The Project aims to promote and develop stronger links for Christian Church communities online, using the full potential of the internet to develop fellowship and extend ministry to both local and global communities.

Daniel has experience in Audit, Retail, Customer Service and Busienss Operations management. His main business interest is in helping develop new start-up businesses and providing support and advice for new business websites. He is also a keen photographer and has sold a number of prints to galleries and art dealers within the UK and online.

Let me make myself crystal clear on this. Daniel Gibbins is not the copyright holder and does not have permission to use these articles. The articles he’s used are stolen.

Not only that, he’s claiming to be the author and attempting to win clients as a web designer off the back of this “expertise”. As far as I’m concerned, that’s defrauding me personally. I’m the author and it took me a lot of time and hard to work gain any level of expertise I may have. If people are going to be using any web designer off the back of those articles, it should not be him.

Also, he is also putting other people on the wrong side of the law, as they will unknowingly use these articles, without realizing that they’re actually breaking copyright.

It’s one thing to copy work out of a published book and use it on your own site. That’s wrong. But to publish it on a website where other people are MEANT to download and use the articles and to set yourself up as an “expert” on web design is just downright dishonest.

It’s certainly not the level of honesty I’d hope for from a teacher and somebody who’s putting themselves out there as running a “Christian” business.

If I ran a church, I’m not sure I’d want to deal with somebody who has so little regard for honesty and the law. I certainly wouldn’t want my (as yet hypothetical) children to be taught by someone who lies so easily.
This guy does not deserve to be in business. He’s a fake and a liar.

If I had ever had a website designed by him, I’d check VERY carefully where the text and images came from other wise you could land in trouble.

A favour?

I would like to ask readers of this blog to do me a tiny favour. I’d like them to link to this article using the link text Daniel Gibbins. Eg.
Daniel Gibbins

I want anybody who searches for “Daniel Gibbins” in Google to find this page first.
Then, I hope, they won’t use him.

If you add a link to your blog, Facebook page, Myspace page or website it’ll help this to happen.
Finally, I would ask that you don’t contact Mr Gibbins, at least just yet.