When the Lianne Spiderbaby commentary was happening, the consensus was that a small amount of borrowing (a sentence/phrase here or there) did matter.  Clearly, something's up when exact phrases (and not just one word) are used in both articles under examination.  I don't think there is any definition of plagiarism that offers a free pass or invalidates the charge of plagiarism due to a borrowing of just several parts from the original source. 

From what I remember, no one was accused outright of plagiarism in this matter, and whatever suspicions arose were lessened considerably by the reputation of one of the writers, so that pains were taken to offer up a simple and not damning explanation: That both writers used a similar PR source.

The genie left that bottle once the topic was raised, so it's out there, despite the removal, a few days later, of the discussion here that named the writers and the articles in question.


Mirek