Pages:
Author

Topic: Plagiarism as a result of cultural differences (Read 1271 times)

jr. member
Activity: 56
Merit: 37
September 08, 2021, 11:01:40 PM
#51
5. MOST importantly, I have a proposal that to every newbie, there should be a warning "Do Not Copy/Paste other people’s work without Citing". This warning will remain at the top of the newbies page immediately after the menu bar. Maybe until the newbie will become a Jr member before it can be removed.
Many good ideas have been proposed already, including welcome messages of various forms, but nothing is happening on that front.
I think KingDen's idea is a pretty good one myself, and suchmoon suggested something very similar recently:

If a simple sentence was added to the "Post reply" / "Start new topic" page next to the "Post" button, e.g. "don't make low value unnecessary posts and make sure to add links/quotes if you copied text written by someone else", I think that would significantly help users who don't really intend to plagiarize, but perhaps don't know (cultural differences and whatnot) that unreferenced copypasta is not cool, or forget to format it properly.

If either suggestion were implemented, newbies would have absolutely no excuse and no grounds for appeal if they posted someone else's words without crediting them.  And given that the problem is extensive and has been going on for so long and that it would probably be an easy thing to do, why not do it?  Seriously, how much coding would Theymos or whoever have to do to insert a warning like that?

There are many solutions, I guess it will affect some of the rights, they do not welcome this kind of improvement.

There are always more solutions than difficulties. Bitcoin is derived from consensus. In fact, it is completely based on the trust in the Bitcoin white paper and economic model, as well as the underlying technology of the blockchain, but in the Bitcoin forum, don't test humanity.

As long as you are a person, you have selfishness. Don't say how noble you are, I won't listen.

For decentralized Bitcoin, there is also a semi-centralized Bitcoin forum. It is not difficult to formulate the rules of the game, the key is whether it affects the interests of some people. I don't want to mention the name. I hate them.

Ratimov once said that this forum only has 10% original content, including himself of course. The others are all quotes. This is not a small probability event, especially the quotes of some pictures. If calculated based on plagiarism, then the forum will be closed directly.

All the problems are only superficial. The essence is that because some people are more influential in the forum, they like the power in their hands, and they are not considering the problem from the perspective of the development of the forum. The forum’s freedom of speech is not real from time to time. I am not slandering their efforts, but I do not approve of their actions.
legendary
Activity: 3500
Merit: 6981
Top Crypto Casino
5. MOST importantly, I have a proposal that to every newbie, there should be a warning "Do Not Copy/Paste other people’s work without Citing". This warning will remain at the top of the newbies page immediately after the menu bar. Maybe until the newbie will become a Jr member before it can be removed.
Many good ideas have been proposed already, including welcome messages of various forms, but nothing is happening on that front.
I think KingDen's idea is a pretty good one myself, and suchmoon suggested something very similar recently:

If a simple sentence was added to the "Post reply" / "Start new topic" page next to the "Post" button, e.g. "don't make low value unnecessary posts and make sure to add links/quotes if you copied text written by someone else", I think that would significantly help users who don't really intend to plagiarize, but perhaps don't know (cultural differences and whatnot) that unreferenced copypasta is not cool, or forget to format it properly.

If either suggestion were implemented, newbies would have absolutely no excuse and no grounds for appeal if they posted someone else's words without crediting them.  And given that the problem is extensive and has been going on for so long and that it would probably be an easy thing to do, why not do it?  Seriously, how much coding would Theymos or whoever have to do to insert a warning like that?
legendary
Activity: 1582
Merit: 1059
nutildah-III / NFT2021-04-01
Not sure why people absolutely need to continue to keep this discussion alive. The definition of plagiarism does not change in other cultures or other forums. Its punishment does. Its definition doesn't.

Some of you are acting as if this plagiarism discussion is like a wine-tasting event, where everyone sips and swirls and feels the need to express his opinion. In reality, you're all drinking plain tap water.

"Posting something and pretending it's yours, is plagiarism. The rest is not." End of discussion.

And: "if you don't know the definition of plagiarism, then how can you tell your country (or culture? or other forums?) is flexible towards plagiarism?" ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?




I'm not going to write a new post about this every few months, so here's quoting myself:

(...) Posting something and pretending it's yours, is plagiarism. The rest is not. (Which doesn't mean that the rest might not be violating some other rule.)

There is however no difference between countries. Plagiarism is plagiarism and the definition of plagiarism does not change if you're in an other country.

Surely some countries have laws or no laws or flexible laws or unenforceable laws or whatever terminology fits you to try to act as if you didn't know you were breaking the rules. But even if your country doesn't punish plagiarism, the definition of plagiarism is VERY clear.

Because if you don't know the definition of plagiarism, then how can you tell your country is flexible towards plagiarism? Roll Eyes


So I'd suggest everyone to quit the useless pseudo intellectual discussions about countries, cultures and definitions, and to get to the point:

1. you copy-paste something that's clearly not yours: a photo of Brad Pitt or Britney Spears? An article from the New York Times or Yahoo Finance? A Youtube clip of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean? If it's clearly not yours, it is common policy to post a source, and if you don't, it's generally frowned upon. You should do this especially for written posts and articles, because in general it's less evident that the post is a copypaste.
(for instance, in the case of images, virtually 99% of all photos posted on this forum are considered non-plagiarizing copypasting, and most of the time quoting a source is not necessary, simply because it is so obvious that you are not the original author of that content)
>> this is not plagiarism, but this doesn't mean your post doesn't violate any other forum rules like zero value, burstposting, spamming etc.


2. you copy-paste someone else's work and pretend it to be yours: this is plagiarism. By definition it's intentional. "Unintentional plagiarism" does not exist and is a contradictio in terminis. Your intent has to be proven and this explains why mods are very careful before (temp-)banning someone for plagiarism.


Sure, there may be differences between individual countries' legal approach, flexibility and punishment of plagiarism, but there is no difference in the definition of plagiarism. Therefore, your culture, country or origin never counts as an excuse or a justification for plagiarism.

legendary
Activity: 2072
Merit: 4265
✿♥‿♥✿
I keep asking myself why such a warning still doesn't work? There is the red text: be careful with flag users, there is a warning about old themes. But there is no warning that plagiarism can negatively affect the future if the user commits it.

But if this has not yet been decided, then it is necessary to draw conclusions that the people who have come here should know about such violations? Isn't it? If you are interested in a forum, then interest comes from the person himself, why take something from others? By copying from other sources, the user understands that he is thus committing a deception. Therefore, the forum does not prohibit him from doing this, but simply informs him later that this is not acceptable on the forum. I see the forum here, as a living being, powerful enough, which can simply get rid of the swindler. No screams or warnings. This is power.

The lessons we learn make us stronger, not only in this forum but also in life. If we know that for each deception, its own portion of punishment will arrive, we simply will not do this everywhere.
legendary
Activity: 2408
Merit: 4282
eXch.cx - Automatic crypto Swap Exchange.
We can't always wait on the forum to solve our problems, I remember when getting notification was an issue on the forum, some skillful forum members step up and such feature is no longer a problem and they're always update coming in making the notification more appealing, same thing could be done about the plagiarism issue we have in the forum. The society itself is already lost and the member coming in fail to realized that stealing someone else works is a crimes.

As I have previously said, this days the Social platform has made it a norm to plagiarized as they aren't tacking this issue, users can easily cite other users words/article as theirs written on Facebook and other platform without giving reference and they'll get away with such crime.

In summary, I think it'll be a welcome development if this skilled users that once solved our notification, signature ad and movable avatar problem before theymos set in can come to the rescue again and do something again like having a bot or something on the forum that automatically sends the unofficial rules highlighting the no plagiarism aspect to newly registered account, this might go a long way.
legendary
Activity: 2730
Merit: 7065
1. Culture can generally be called ideas, norms, behaviors including rules and regulations guiding a particular people. If the above is correct, it will also be correct to say that bitcointalk has its own culture and/or cultural heritage and should not be overridden.
True. The rules of Bitcointalk are more important than what you know is applied in other forums or wherever you hang out. Users here are expected to adhere to Bitcointalk's local rules even though they are unofficial. If you come to my house, you take your shoes off. I don't care what you do at your place. Next time we go to your place, I will keep my shoes on if I have to or I simply won't come.

5. MOST importantly, I have a proposal that to every newbie, there should be a warning "Do Not Copy/Paste other people’s work without Citing". This warning will remain at the top of the newbies page immediately after the menu bar. Maybe until the newbie will become a Jr member before it can be removed.
Many good ideas have been proposed already, including welcome messages of various forms, but nothing is happening on that front.
legendary
Activity: 1288
Merit: 1081
Goodnight, o_e_l_e_o 🌹
Plagiarism as a result of cultural differences is real and has been happening. I however wish to discuss as it concerns the forum;
1. Culture can generally be called ideas, norms, behaviors including rules and regulations guiding a particular people. If the above is correct, it will also be correct to say that bitcointalk has its own culture and/or cultural heritage and should not be overridden.
2. There can be indigenous and foreign cultures. In which ever way, as regards to plagiarism, the most important is awareness.
3. The duty of a new user to a forum is to read her rules and regulations before joining. Also the duty of the forum to the user is to make such rules and regulations more available to them.
4. If the unofficial rules are translated and pinned at every local boards it will be good.
5. MOST importantly, I have a proposal that to every newbie, there should be a warning "Do Not Copy/Paste other people’s work without Citing". This warning will remain at the top of the newbies page immediately after the menu bar. Maybe until the newbie will become a Jr member before it can be removed.
6. With this, the newbie mistake at first post or claiming not aware of plagiarism rule would be curtailed.
Thank you!
legendary
Activity: 2730
Merit: 7065
Bumping my old Plagiarism as a result of cultural differences thread due to the recent events.
legendary
Activity: 1582
Merit: 1059
nutildah-III / NFT2021-04-01
How do you determine the intent of why someone posted a photo. (...)
How can you determine and prove that he is claiming the photo is his or that he isn't?

If you want to apply a rule, you need proof that someone has broken it. With all due respect, surely this can't be the first time in your life that you realized an offence has to be proven??

That's exactly why mods are so careful before they ban someone for plagiarism.

If you need to know more, just search Google for "proof of intent", but this is turning into a (rather absurd) general legal discussion which has nothing to do with your OP and it's completely off-topic.
legendary
Activity: 1372
Merit: 1027
Dump it!!!
I think plagiarism on this forum is more similar to being utterly lazy in your job than academic plagiarism.
And the truth was spoken!!!

On here, most of the members are from countries where this cultural difference doesn't apply as an excuse. Even if people come from a country where plagiarism isn't a common spoken theme. The fact that they're on here means that they know something, or at least they know how to imitate that they know something, and by definition alone this means that they're at least aware of plagiarism. NO excuse!

Quote
Most of those bounty hunters treat this as a source of income AND don't want to put effort into it.
For some bounty hunters this probably applies but for those who practice plagiarism, even their career as a bounty hunter wouldn't take them far. There will be no constructive comments or contributions, no new knowledge generated and in the end this is reflected in their merit.
legendary
Activity: 2730
Merit: 7065
Warning is for newbies who don't read rules, don't know where to read rules or read but don't know the rule of plagiarism. With users are in the forum for a while and are Sr. Members, Hero members or Legendary members I don't agree they need warnings.
There have been cases where users of higher ranks have been banned for plagiarism offences that they committed 3-4 years ago, and at a time when they were still new at the forum. I am not sure if the plagiarism rule even existed back then.

Posting a photo without source, might have copyright consequences, but if you're not pretending the photo is yours, it's NOT a plagiarism offence
How do you determine the intent of why someone posted a photo. Lets say we are talking about the growth-rate of bitcoin in the last 3 months compared to lets say gold. And a user posts a graph that clearly shows how much bitcoin has gained compared to all precious metals.

He writes: take a look at this great graph that shows what gains bitcoin has achieved recently.
How can you determine and prove that he is claiming the photo is his or that he isn't?
legendary
Activity: 1582
Merit: 1059
nutildah-III / NFT2021-04-01
A lot of interesting reactions, and a bit of nonsense and bullshit, too, here and there...

Copy-pasting and plagiarism are not synonyms.

I don't see why literally thousands of posts and opinions have been wasted on this subject. This is not something to have an opinion about: either it's plagiarism, or it's not.

That doesn't mean it's easy to prove (because if it's intentional, it's an offence, and if it's not intentional, it's not an offence) - and yes, the discussion about "intent" offers plenty of room for discussion - but the concept/definition of plagiarism is not open for discussion, not even in a cultural context. If you intentionally pretend the works or the text or the photo etc. to be yours - while they're not - there's plagiarism, no matter which country or culture you're in. So there are no different interpretations between cultures and nations, there are only differences between people who understand what (intentional) plagiarism is, and those who don't.

Read this a bit, because I don't know how clear it has to be made, before this discussion finally ends: https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/skills/plagiarism

So yes, posting a text or a photo which is not yours might cause copyright issues (which is using someone else's intellectual property without permission, but has nothing to do with the famous nr. 33 of the forum rules), but as long as you're not pretending it's yours, there's NO plagiarism offence.

And for instance, text spinning CLEARLY is an offence of plagiarism, because you're actively and intentionally working to pretend having written someone else's text, of which you're even trying to hide its traces - doesn't get more intentional than that, right?

Posting a photo without source, might have copyright consequences, but if you're not pretending the photo is yours, it's NOT a plagiarism offence.
Posting a text without source, exactly the same thing: might have copyright consequences, but if you're not pretending the photo is yours, it's NOT a plagiarism offence. There's no logical reason at all why photos and text posts would be treated in a different way?
It's not nice and quite stupid to not mark at least the source (not to mention the copyright discussion), but if there's no intent, it's NO plagiarism offence.

So imho, the only relevant discussion that should be had on "the big plagiarism debate" is reduced to this simple question: is it (proven) intentional or not?

By the way, in the plagiarism thread, I'm not saying there's an intent in every case, but in any case, all cases I've seen passing by on the thread were intentional. However I can imagine there's a probability that people have been banned in the past for copypasting something without pretending it to be their works. Not saying it happened, just saying it's probable. As this offence is punished with forum death penalty, I presume mods take in-depth look at every separate case before deciding to ban, temp or perm.



edit:

Copy and paste post then recognizes the source of the author below is also consider as plagiarism though source may be indicated and being acknowledge but in my own opinion it is not enough to republish without even asking first the author. Just like a book being scan or photcopied, the author has the copyright for this and we should respect the author of his intellectual property by responsible publishing may it be online or other platform like this forum. This is only my opinion.

QED
full member
Activity: 924
Merit: 221
Copy and paste post then recognizes the source of the author below is also consider as plagiarism though source may be indicated and being acknowledge but in my own opinion it is not enough to republish without even asking first the author. Just like a book being scan or photcopied, the author has the copyright for this and we should respect the author of his intellectual property by responsible publishing may it be online or other platform like this forum. This is only my opinion.
legendary
Activity: 2954
Merit: 3060
Join the world-leading crypto sportsbook NOW!
People really should be given a warning about plagiarism as obviously not all plagiarism is equal. There's obviously a huge difference between someone who comes here and tries to milk signature campaigns or farm accounts by using someone else's postings either from this forum or elsewhere but if someone just posts an incorrectly quoted/sourced answer from google to a question someone asked then that really shouldn't be the end of their account. A warning or at the very most a short temp ban should be enough.
Warning is for newbies who don't read rules, don't know where to read rules or read but don't know the rule of plagiarism. With users are in the forum for a while and are Sr. Members, Hero members or Legendary members I don't agree they need warnings.

Well it depends on the level/type of plagiarism. If someone asks a question like what is the colour teal and someone goes straight to google/wikipedia and posts Teal is a blue-green colour. Its name comes from that of a bird—the common teal (Anas crecca)—which presents a similarly colored stripe on its head. The word is often used colloquially to refer to shades of cyan in general. then I don't think they should be permanently banned for that. A warning would suffice for 99% of people to not do it again.

Quote
Obviously most of us know that plagiarism is wrong but sometimes it's just down to naivety more than anything and a lot of time won't be done with malicious intent with or without a signature. We also really need to get that welcome message sorted where users are urged to read the rules or are given a handful of the most important ones upon sign-up. That alone would stop a lot of this from ever happening.
Roger it, naivety is for newbies not for Hero members 'bitcoinst' abusing signature campaign with alt account & spamming by copy-paste

I'm not talking about specific cases but not everyone reads the rules or ventures into Meta. The rules should be made available upon sign-up. For many users they have little no reason to go here in Meta or it's often the last board they do. A welcome message stating a few of the most serious rules would help tremendously.
hero member
Activity: 1442
Merit: 775
People really should be given a warning about plagiarism as obviously not all plagiarism is equal. There's obviously a huge difference between someone who comes here and tries to milk signature campaigns or farm accounts by using someone else's postings either from this forum or elsewhere but if someone just posts an incorrectly quoted/sourced answer from google to a question someone asked then that really shouldn't be the end of their account. A warning or at the very most a short temp ban should be enough.
Warning is for newbies who don't read rules, don't know where to read rules or read but don't know the rule of plagiarism. With users are in the forum for a while and are Sr. Members, Hero members or Legendary members I don't agree they need warnings.

Quote
Obviously most of us know that plagiarism is wrong but sometimes it's just down to naivety more than anything and a lot of time won't be done with malicious intent with or without a signature. We also really need to get that welcome message sorted where users are urged to read the rules or are given a handful of the most important ones upon sign-up. That alone would stop a lot of this from ever happening.
Roger it, naivety is for newbies not for Hero members 'bitcoinst' abusing signature campaign with alt account & spamming by copy-paste
legendary
Activity: 2954
Merit: 3060
Join the world-leading crypto sportsbook NOW!
People really should be given a warning about plagiarism as obviously not all plagiarism is equal. There's obviously a huge difference between someone who comes here and tries to milk signature campaigns or farm accounts by using someone else's postings either from this forum or elsewhere but if someone just posts an incorrectly quoted/sourced answer from google to a question someone asked then that really shouldn't be the end of their account. A warning or at the very most a short temp ban should be enough.
Obviously most of us know that plagiarism is wrong but sometimes it's just down to naivety more than anything and a lot of time won't be done with malicious intent with or without a signature. We also really need to get that welcome message sorted where users are urged to read the rules or are given a handful of the most important ones upon sign-up. That alone would stop a lot of this from ever happening.

@DdmrDdmr
I asked long ago about the possibility to have multiple owners of one thread, but I haven't heard since. We don't have a local section, only a thread in the other languages and the OP is a newbie with 2 posts and last active back in march 2012. I thought since this is our official thread, it could be changed an updated a if someone share the ownership with the OP.
It can be a solution in your case too.

It probably won't happen on this forum but hopefully it'll be on the new one. It would be a useful feature for sure.
full member
Activity: 1022
Merit: 133
I agree to it.

I think plagiarism should be divided into subcategories. And the punishment should be given proportional to it.

If a person copy pastes an article without source, let them be given a temporary ban or a stern warning and if they are caught doing that again, then ban. But if it's a deliberate plagiarism where a user plagiarized someone else's topic word by word to increase their post count then a permanent ban.

Also, if it's possible every newbie should be redirected to the rules post in which they click "I agree" before registering in which plagiarism rule be written in bold maybe Smiley

copper member
Activity: 2562
Merit: 2510
Spear the bees
Bump after a long time.
Although I would agree with the addition of some redirect/indicator for new users towards the forum rules, it is the infantilization of users' knowledge that creates the chain of excuses.

Consider:

What does someone have to go through in order to commit plagiarism in the English-speaking boards?
They need to comprehend English at a basic level to find content and they need to be able to match responses to questions or topics. It's probable that they are able to respond to the questions themselves, given appropriate knowledge on a particular topic. Perhaps they may not have encountered prejudice against plagiarism throughout their study of the language. If you are assuming some cultural difference or unawareness of the plagiarism rules, it's curious to wonder what kind of person expects to stay on a forum ban-free having never read the rules: did they expect that ignorance of the rules implied protection from them? And given that notion, could I assume the same position and thus present that as my cultural representation/perspective, thereby steering myself away from responsibility?
legendary
Activity: 2383
Merit: 1551
dogs are cute.
Regarding point number 3, I have been on both sides of the coin, where my school forced me to literally by-heart word by word, and present stuff. And another, where they asked us not to do so at all, and use referencing, citation when presenting papers.

I have used Turnitin before, I hate it because it fucks up your university life, but I also know that it is good. Turnitin has this feature, where you could view the originality of the paper, excluding the citations and references.

BUT the forum's plagiarism policy doesn't collide with the cultural differences at all.

The forum doesn't even ask for referencing, but rather only citations(links), if you copy something. The forum is so lenient towards plagiarism cause, you have to refer to stuff in real life situations when you use the ideas from others. People should know that plagiarism is an offence, its their mistake if they don't,in 99% of the cases. Cause most of us have gone to universities and referencing and plagiarism is a big deal there.

Referencing won't make sense for a forum, but I THANK GOD we don't have that shit. Referencing one website takes time and is annoying. SO I DO NOT MIND CITING STUFF. OTHERS SHOULDN'T TOO.
legendary
Activity: 2240
Merit: 3150
₿uy / $ell ..oeleo ;(
@DdmrDdmr
I asked long ago about the possibility to have multiple owners of one thread, but I haven't heard since. We don't have a local section, only a thread in the other languages and the OP is a newbie with 2 posts and last active back in march 2012. I thought since this is our official thread, it could be changed an updated a if someone share the ownership with the OP.
It can be a solution in your case too.

A moderator should be able to update those posts.

That means that I have to make a new post and ask a Mod to change it and every time we do a change I have bother the with the same request. I would prefer to have the right to change the initial post but the OP to still have control of if shows up one day.
I think the mods have better thins to do.
Pages:
Jump to: