Topic: Recurring issues of plagiarism. (Read 195 times)

It is very old topic and answers can be found in many topics inside my collection.

• Plagiarsism QA topics. I don't think new topics about plagiarism are necessary
• I know there will be more topics about plagiarism, but please DYOR before making new topics

Actually, when it comes to plagiarism, it does not matter whether it is intentional or not. Intention is rather complicated. You couldn't easily prove or disprove it. So we should rather stick to the fact and fact is that is you are saying or writing something as if it is your own when in fact it is not.

It is actually very easy to just start a sentence with "according to" if you you've taken the idea from somebody else. Footnote or endnote is not even required, although a link could make everything more credible.

And also, there is really no such thing as valid reasons for plagiarism. In the world outside this forum, it could lose you your job, or your thesis, or your entire prospect of graduating, and so on.

Because all of these things which mostly I agree with and keeping in mind that this is not mostly a problem of the forum but rather of the new people with arrive here, I do not believe we should consider to step down our individual standards for the sake of the new people not to feel too pressured (that would be in my opnion one of the last options).

I'd rather the adminitration to be more explicit about the consequences of plagiarism.

Allow me to give an example:

Like the most of the newbies who participate here for the first time, I did so after barely reading the rules, I mostly used my common sense and the experience I earned within other communities on internet. Later I took my time and read and I realized there was rules which were a bit specific, so I am glad I read them.

I knew that plagiarism was against the rules, but within my ignorance I thought it was something punished by 1 week or 1 month of ban. Imagine my surprise when I visited Meta and saw the topics of people begging for their bans to be lifted because they comitted plagiarism, it was a bit shocking for me because I did not expect someone to be permabanned for it, but I accepted and understood the measures.

I would vote for include a big red message during the registration of new accounts like:

___________________________-


________________

Just my opinion

One thing is the obligatory nature of the rules and another one the reason for the rules to be enacted or the reasons why a rule is not followed. Because it's true, ignorance doesn't exempt from compliance, but when too many people fail to respect the rules, that may be due to difficulties that can be solved discussing on the subject.

So yes, a lawyer could not have said it better (being a lawyer myself), but this principle doesn't solve the problem that the subject of plagiarism comes up more and more frequently.

If, like Hispo said, they plagiarise because of some kind of high pressure to post very high quality, maybe we could start being more flexible with newbies and give them merits more easily than to higher ranks in order to encourage them. Even if they do it in order to obtain merits fast and earn money in campaigns, this flexibility could be also positive.

Just an idea. I would love to see more here.

I don't know what it is to be expected of users in a discussion platform or forum as it is. Bitcointalk is one unique platform that prioritises in the creativity and ideas of its members and have designed its system to encourage this in users with the need to enjoy certain benefits that comes with ranks in the forum.

One thing is for sure on the forum, your never forced to do anything if your not in a signature or bounty campaign. No one pressures you to make a required number of post or engage in a particular discussion. Your aims and desires in the forum becomes your drive to do that. All that is expected of you by the forum is that, you acknowledge the rules and play by those rules.

It's apparently so, not everyone are good readers & writers or even both and at times, exclusively one. Sadly, you need to have something to offer in the forum to make a name in the form for your user. In our world today, ideas are what we sell and the forum has created an avenue to display your talent and get rewards or credits in for it. You may not be a good writer but you could write codes, create signatures and avatar, design memes, create arts, NFT, etc and still get to benefit in certain ways if only your good at your job and knows how to sell your brand.

So, the limitation to your success on the forum is really the user. Turning to plagiarise just to seem create scale the ranks is just a look down on other forms of earnings and not believing in what you could do.

1.When you sign up to Facebook, there's no cast on stone rules and likewise other social media platforms.
Some newbies see this place as a social media platform. So, they think they can do anything they wish.
2. Again, whenever you join an organisation you ask for the rules governing there. But some newbies don't care about this.
3. Language barrier is also a problem
4. Then no knowledge of cryptocurrencies.

Yes that's possible. The only thing they might forgot is reading first the rules and go wild on posting hoping that they could salvage any amount of merits by copy pasting some marvelous articles. In the forum, noticing that is quite easy, many factors affecting this but probably the most one is to gain merits and join signature campaign and bounty to earn money that is clearly not the goal here.

Users who really don't understand forum rules don't know what violation they're doing and think that banning is a subjective forum policy. They can come back with new accounts and commit similar violations if they don't seek the first ban reason.

I'm even sure that the majority of newbies will make their thread in the first place instead of reading the forum rules, they'll never even bother to touch it. There are dozens of forums out there and they may not be well moderated. If the newbies come from such forums, they will always bring their habits to new places.

Well, I have shared news when their respective source quite often and I have earned some merits because of it.
I am not saying it is bad, sharing is caring after all, but stealing it is not.

Not because (my account is High rank - so that's okay). I understand very well that if a fully built account from scratch (0) reaches a high rating, then they consciously understand what Consequences will be faced (banned) when they want to share ideas without citing the original owner's source.

And I want to add about top ranking account.
the problem is not only for that reason but can be caused as a trading account (buying and selling). Why is that? YES: because they prefer shortcuts without bothering to build rankings. with the aim (usually to join the bounty campaign)

For example: I bought a Senior account for $200 and I joined the campaign (A) with a duration of 4weeks. if the project is really a success (coins) from your advertising proceeds, can cover your capital when buying a $200 account.
it's just a basic overview: although sometimes it's the other way around.

Back to the main topic: in short the buyer doesn't know that the account they are buying turns out to have a bad background. such as making posts based on copy paste without the owner's source (during active / before selling).
Also, I say this because what I saw on Loyce.club Tools is very useful and can help you to search about History account banned because (copy paste) or other violations.

Your right buddy thats the main cause why some newbies banned not just newbie but some high rank do plagiarism but the difference between newbies and high ranks is that newbies plagiarized someone's work because they want to create an constructive thread but they not cite the source.
Some High ranks plagiarized text cause they want to share that text here but they forgot the source or they think that it is okay to plagiarized cause they are high ranks.

Nope, I wasn't disparaging your comment at all. I understood you well the first time. I was only just wondering why any poster would think referencing a copied post won't earn them merit if it's deserving of it. It's better to own up that one didn't originate an article than copy it without reference. There's no dignity in doing that.

I am aware of it. I am not trying to excuse what they do, I offered my thoughts on why they probably do it, that's all.


Right, but I meant cases of flagrant plagiarism. Stealing information rather than sharing it.

Newbies are not thinking like that, they like to copy directly from a site and paste it on this forum, they have not seen a reported plagiarised posts before, they think no one will know it that, that people will think they are good. But they will later be banned and learn. The bad part is when they later become good, understand this forum and far better than before, their plagiarised work might be seen and reported and be banned. They do not understand this is just a forum, that links are also accepted but not also in copy and paste which makes the post to be of low quality.

Well, I don't see how referencing the source of an article will detract it from getting merited by any right discerning individual. I don't see why I won't merit any constructive article I have learnt a thing or two from if I've merit to splash, even if it's not originally from OP but referenced. For me, I easily find out articles that are not genuinely written by OP especially if OP is a newbie. If such an article isn't referenced, I don't merit it. I move on. There are certain level of knowledge I expect in articles or posts made by newbies and this is made more pronounced when a certain post is well packed with information and knowledge deeper than OP's other posts.

There is a general rule in law, not that it applies 100% of the time, but the vast majority of the time: ignorance of the law does not exempt from compliance with it.

You cannot steal a person's wallet and say that you did not know that it was forbidden to do so in order to avoid the penalty.

In this case it would be the same

I would also like to point out that there is an implicit pressure upon the user, specially the newcomers, to produce or participate in a meaningful way in order to get a higher rank within the forum.

Many newbies may become active members on here with the expectations or main objective to get involved into signatures campaigns (aka money). Some may achieve this by participating correctly and eventually getting the merits needed, perhaps even learning useful things on their way (how to sign messages, how to explore the blockchain, how to encrypt information...)

However, we all know not everyone is the same. There is people who have a rough time trying to articule ideas or express their thoughts either through speaking or writting. I believe we all have met or had as companion in highschool a person that used to get completely frozen during a speech, presentation or even a written test.

During those times, I am quite sure those kind of people wished to have the answers written on the wall in front of them, so they could proceed by repeating/ writting what they see.

Of course, cheating a test has consequences and those have made them/us thinking twice about doing it.
But I assume many people who copy/paste information on internet in order to get merits, don't see it exactly as "cheating", they are just stuck in their test to rank up, they have useful information right in front and they believe there is no teacher peeking over them whatsoever.

That's my opinion.

There is possibility but why copying materials from another site and dumping it here, they should know it is not called for. This is a forum where people bring up ideas, bring issues they can not solve on their own, a place where we can make just little comments about what we read on news and see people's opinions. But some people just like plagiarism, they like to spam. Many of the newbies know the rules but they just like to plagiarize. Yes, some are pretending by making people to think they are the owner of an article. Bounty hunters are lazy and just want to plagiarize. They will later be found and be banned.

They just end up getting banned anyway - someone'll find them out - or a bot.

Apparently it's rife in a lot of acedemia too. I think also, if you make the warning too explicit, you could end up giving users an idea of something to try (rather than not to).

Countless times, issues of plagiarism have been addressed, many forum users have gone under the hammer and punished, used as example for others to reiterate that plagiarism is not permitted. Unfortunately still, whenever i visit the meta board, i still see reports of intentional plagiarism by some forum users and i am wondering, why do people still intentionally plagiarize?

Is there possibility that newbies have never come across forum rules in the "Beginners and help" board where plagiarism is clearly stated to be prohibited? or are these other few reasons identified by me valid reasons for plagiarising.

-Pretence
That is trying to act as though you possess a sort of knowledge that you do not have, a major cause of plagiarism amongst newbies.

- Lack of creativity in writing
Newbies finding it difficult to express themselves through writing and sometimes feeling like their creative write ups or post will not be enough to provoke a reasonable conversation amongst other forum users.

- Laziness
The ease associated with copy and pasting, another lure to plagiarism.