Rumors? Which Rumors?
For starters it's impossible to rip threads. How could you possibly steal entire threads? You can't control who or what will be posted in a thread. You can rip a theory, but a complete thread? Not possible. So there is already something very wrong with saying 'stealing threads'.
Secondly to be able to even make a statement like "NB steals threads" it would be necessary for like having hundreds of NB people who really have been stealing threads from other forums as otherwise how could you even say NB? Even if one or two members did steal threads, how could those members ever represent the thousands of members who visit NB? Someone who actually did that can't be called anything else but rancorous and ill-willed towards NB, just searching for petty excuses to drag NB's name through the mud. Even assuming someone took a thread from another forum, unless you're going assume that person became member specifically to steal threads (which is pretty ridiculous), it would mean that that person highly likely visits that forum frequently and might even be a member of it. If that's the case then how could NB be 'stealing' those threads? That would in fact mean it's their own members, their own clientele who is stealing the threads and then NB would be blamed? Those persons would be in the least as much member of that other forum as of NB, but if they then push it onto us, well you can't consider it anything but sad.
Thirdly I can only recall twice a report I have done revolving around the 'stealing of a thread'. I think I just added a note in the first thread saying that person didn't made the original thread to please the person who reported it (I'm not even sure I actually did that) and with the 2nd I didn't do anything at all as it was just preposterous. The original thread on the other forum was quite old, as I recall not so active, but above all there was nothing to 'steal' in that thread. A forum can't © topics. A forum that's going to say it has the rights on a specific discussion can only be deemed as being arrogant and selfish. That thread was a discussion thread for a normal topic (I forget which one, but it was a topic like any other). The person who made the thread only posted a few lines of text and then said 'discuss'. There was nothing to steal. Yes someone on NB copy pasted that entire post (not that there was much in that post) for some reason, so? It's just plainly childish if someone is going to call 4 normal lines that contain anything noteworthy 'stealing'.
In Dutch we really have a very cool name to call such people. To avoid foul language and having 16 people who collect 5 infractions a week reporting me saying "he used offensive language, infract him", I will just give you a translated definition of the word: He who has coitus with an ant. It's loosely used for people who are nitpicking on extremely minor and shallow stuff just to criticize. Not to mention it might even be the same person as it's not unusual for someone to have accounts on different forums and make there the exact same threads he or she posted on another forum.
You can't steal threads and no forum has the right to claim discussion topics, forbidding other forums to discuss them and calling global, shallow discussions, even if 4 or 5 lines were copy pasted word for word, 'stealing' is just stupid. If someone actually used such stuff as a reason to say NB steals threads, then that person is paranoid. However it's a completely different case when it involves unique, long and complex predictions or theories. If someone has ripped off a theory or prediction that was clearly unique and made by someone else and we find it out, then we punish them and we have done that in the past. For years now there has been circulating a theory about Tsunade being Naruto's grandmother and I've seen countless of people posting it on NB implying or even saying they made it. Well those people got punished. But such type of threads are quite the rarity and we can't possibly be held responsible for the person who stole it, we can only punish them. After all if someone steals a ring and tries to sell it to someone else, if that person is not aware it was stolen, how could he be taken responsible? If a member really steals a thread from somewhere else claiming it's his, in most cases we simply can't possibly know that as saying that we would intentionally command members to steal threads from other forums, like a rich art collector would let famous art be stolen for him, that would be utterly paranoid.
So no NB did not steal anything. I mean we already have enough junk threads of ourselves, why would we want those of other forums too? If someone claims we does, well in most cases that would simply mean he's trying to make us look bad and I wouldn't call that a very nice thing to do.
