Topic: [UNBAN APPEAL] Acura3600 (Read 850 times)

Fair enough

Fair enough.


I don't think a signature ban is too harsh. And I think altcoin copy-pasta across multiple threads is not what this forum is for, regardless if we file it under plagiarism or not.

OK, I overlooked that, you're right here, so probably he copied it from yurimir.

But does this single sentence which was added by yurimir, which is very generic, make it really plagiarism? For example, in German copyright jurisprudence (Acura is a member of the German community) there is universal acceptance of a "threshold of originality" and a single sentence is almost never considered plagiarism (only if it has the originality to be a "literary work" on his own). That's also the base for the business model of search engines.*

I also agree with qwk's stance on the topic. (qwk is a very respected member of the German community)

(*There is a newer law in Germany which grants an ancillary copyright for press publishers which has much lower "threshold", but I doubt that a forum user could be described as "press publisher", so I guess that is not applied to forum posts.)

I agree, he most likely copied and pasted from yurimir's post.
And why wouldn't he?
The source of the content is linked in yurimir's post as well.
That he copied from another post "for convenience", instead of copying (and reformatting) from youtube has nothing to do with plagiarism.
That he inadvertently also copied a single sentence by yurimir is unfortunate, but you cannot be serious that this is plagiarism.

This is where I'll have to draw the line: Acura3600 may have "slipped up" in some (actually many) copy&paste quotes, but I can say with confidence that I know my fellow German board members well enough to vouch for him/her (at least for posts on the German board, since I don't usually read the others very much).

He is not spamming "this forum with zero-effort copy-pasta" to the best of my knowledge.

It also doesn't make sense, he's a Legendary with a "good enough" post history and even some 80 merit of his own.
He can easily make enough money with a signature program, if he so wishes.

We're on the same side here, we both hate copy-paste-spam signature campaigners, and I wouldn't let Acura off the hook so easily if I saw conclusive evidence of even minor cases of such behavior from him. But that is not the case.

I'm also not simply arguing for him/her because I like him/her or because I believe he should have a free "get out of jail card" because "Brutus is an honorable man".

To the best of my knowledge, and from the evidence has been presented here in the thread, and also from what I can tell from looking at Acura's post history, he is not a copy-paste-spammer.

He does, in fact, copy & paste a lot of announcements for different Shitcoins on the Altcoin-board, and he quite often does not link to the source and put everything in quotes, I'll give you that.
But it is pretty obvious that he's not trying to
a) present this as his own content
b) collect merit for it
c) bump his post count by it


I personally couldn't care less if Acura is banned or not. It's not like we're pals or we have a lot in common (he/she's a Shitcoiner, after all).
But the point is, at the moment there's a lot of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt about "the purge" in the German board, and people are actually turning away from bitcointalk. Good posters.
Being too harsh on someone like Acura will not help make bitcointalk a better place.

I don't think it's plausible that Acura3600 copied the video timestamp descriptions from youtube, added the reference link, and then typed the sentence at the top.

I've argued in one of the other threads that it's not technicalities and dictionary definitions that matter, but the intent of the user to spam this forum with zero-effort copy-pasta, which I think this is. I don't mind leniency in punishment, which has already happened.

This is a slightly different case, but the original source does not seem to be yurimir, but rather the video description by Trade Crypto Live itself?
In which case I would argue that this could potentially be considered plagiarism, but that would at least be stretching the meaning of the word.
After all, it's just the "titled" time stamps of the video, which are, in fact, provided by the linked source for the original content.

This might be enough for a signature ban, but I personally would consider that too harsh.

edit: fixed the source link etc.
edit2: highlighted the important part where you, suchmoon, are wrong
edit3: screenshot of the linked source, showing the copied timestamps:

Dear hilariousandco, in light of the evidence you've presented,
I'll have to ask you to lift the ban on Acura3600 immediately and also waive the signature ban.

I have to say I don't agree even with that "minor" sentence and a 1-year parole.
Considering the post you've presented as evidence for plagiarism in this case, I come to the conclusion that the defendant is innocent as charged

You're obviously missing the most important clue here, which I've highlighted for your convenience:
(translation: Does anyone have any info on how the IPO will be run?)

One user, Jl777, asked for information on how some specific IPO/ICO will be run.
Acura3600 answered by copy-pasting the relevant content of the ANN-post.
That is definitely not plagiarism, because there's no intention to make the content "his own".
He simply "forgot" to declare the source, which was, in this particular case, self-evident, by the way.

If we were in a discussion about the right to bear arms in the US, and I were to post the words
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
you wouldn't consider that a case of plagiarism, would you?

The source is obvious.
It's also obvious that this is not content produced by Acura3600.
Therefore, I consider it a necessity to lift the ban on Acura3600 immediately and also waive the signature ban.

It's not. The first sentence is from yurimir's post so it's copied from there (or they both copied from somewhere else) without a reference.

The "time stamps" are from the Youtube video description. He seems to have copied them from there, so in this case it is indeed a source link.  

Well, I see, there seems to be a learning-effect (in need) to follow.

Anyway thankful we did not lose him completely! Thanks for the decision revision!

It costs nothing to add the source and/or quote tags and remove any doubt. Here is a another one, unprompted spammy copy-pasta (and no, the link at the bottom is not a link to a source):

Fully agree here, good to see the permaban is of the table but still the "perpetration" - in my humble opinion - doesn´t deserve a sentence at all.

In that specific case the user "Milquetoast" asked "Does anybody have an information about how the IPO will look like" in German and since Acura answered in english (to me) it is quite obvious that he doesn´t want to arouse the impression that he wrote all that content by himself (he would have done in in German then) but that it comes from the an official source / ANN. Just my 2 cents...


But he indeed forgot the quote-function, what shouldn´t have happen to him in 2016.

While I celebrate that the permaban was removed, I still consider the punishment a bit harsh, as it seems Acura3600 simply forgot to insert a "quote" (and the other "offenses" are no offenses at all as he "plagiarized" himself).

Quoting announcements from companies like altcoin projects and service providers like exchanges to give an update about a recent development is a recurring practice and often useful. I think in these cases it's clear that the people quoting it are not the authors.

In my opinion, there is no plagiarism involved here, and I remember the user as constructive forum member.

Thanks and i guess (i hope) he will learn from that !
Nice to see there are some processing on all appeals .

I changed it to a 60 day ban and one year sig ban. This is the post you were seemingly banned for:

I too was very surprised that Acura 3600 was banned. I myself am also in the German forum on the road and have never had the impression of him, he does something wrong. and if a mistake was made here, hey we humans are not free of mistakes. I hope he can come back again. Many Thanks

for me, i think there is an important part missing in your quote, the beginning of the post:


for me, he was exciting on the article in this newspaper which he expressed and then he quoted this article. sure, not a link to the article but, for me at least a weak reference is given.
But as you said that's up to the global mods to decide. And for me, i hope for a fair decision for acura3600

Acura3600 is a valuable member of bitcointalk. He always keep us up to date with the Komodo project. It would be a pity if he would be banned forever. I don't have an overview of all his contributions, but I appreciate his contributions very much and cannot imagine that he deliberately copies texts.

Scammers that steal bitcoin from others should be banned, of course. But can something like copy a few lines never happen?  How often do you read a text over and over again and suddenly there is a certain sentence in your head?  Does that mean that whoever writes first also has the rights to the sentence? What if someone has written a sentence from the UN-Charta first in this forum and you write this sentence tomorow?

Both should be banned, IMO, but at least this forum is getting it half right.  Actually it's much less than half, because scamming is a far greater offense and much more deserving of a ban.  But Theymos doesn't run bitcointalk that way, so there's nothing we can do about it--it's not our forum.

I'm astonished how many members plagiarized stuff, early in their stay on the forum in most cases.  The problem of plagiarism is much more rampant than even I thought and I'm a pessimist by nature, especially when it comes to crap like this.  On the other hand, it's good to see some mercy being shown to members who didn't make it a habit of copy/pasting and ended up becoming fine, upstanding members of the community. 

I don't think there are any saints present here, and we all make mistakes and break rules and so forth.  However, people change with time.  I'm not the same person I was when I was in my 20s, or even 5 years ago for that matter.