2 days ago, @endplagiarism04 announced a new strategy in the fight against plagiarism. It's fair to say, the left hand wasn't talking to the right and the announcement came as a surprise to everybody at Mousquito Squishers HQ (the original user of the keys had shared them with somebody else to post warning notifications and no more).
Having stepped back from the daily issuance of notices due to the 100+ notifications received every day, the hope and expectation was that community leaders would continue to fight against plagiarism and abuse within their communities.
I believe that in the majority of cases, this has happened. There are many great communities that are applying for the monthly support programme which do the dirty work along with the fun stuff. Unfortunately, there are (and always will be) those that solely wish to profit, no matter how they do it.
I'm also of the opinion that users trawling through the entire Steemit platform to find a post earning $0.02 isn't the best use of time when over $1,000 of content goes "unpunished" - i.e. I don't agree that "Private Investigators" is the future of the fight.
One of the reasons I stepped back, was because amongst the 100+ notifications, there were too many "vigilante" users posting notifications that were simply wrong or overkill - e.g. smashing a new user down for not referencing an image is totally unnecessary. @endplagiarism02, @endplagiarism03 and @endplagiarism04 were hand picked and had a strong track record before being appointed.
So time to get to the point...
I'm not going back to the daily grind - my time's too valuable to me but one response to @endplagiarism04's post did highlight something...
As a moderator of the Writing & Reviews community, I have seen all kinds of fraud in terms of plagiarism of content, images and even duplicates of content. From our community we have done a great job to catch offenders, however, these criminals move to other communities to repeat patterns.
To start, huge credit must go to this community's leaders, they do a consistently fantastic job. Then the big questions...
Is there a way to lower their reputation? Is there a possibility to add them to a blacklist? It would be very good if they could be identified every time they make a Post. (@soldieroffantasy)
i.e. Consequence.
I think that many communities are asking the same question. It was the "sharing of identified users" that I tried to cover in my guide for community leaders - we had previously kept a consolidated list of plagiarists but the list became unsustainable.
Without significant voting power, the former is also extremely difficult. Even at our strongest, we only had about 38,000SP which hardly made a dent in the more significant abusers.
For this, I don't have the answers - I'm going to share some ideas (and prompts) in the comments below and would value your feedback. I also welcome new ideas in the comments - please remember the importance of scalability, especially in relation to time.
UPDATE: Just the 3 ideas from me to get things started.
UPDATE 2: In @endplagiarism04's post, he began with...
No doubt @endingplagiarism was working at full flow and everything was running smoothly
this in the middle...
I'll personally request to @steemcurator01 for the booming support to encourage the users who will work as private investigator
and ended with...
Now final words will be from @steemcuraotor01 and i hope Sc01 will appreciate this new strategy and will support Ep04 in this regard
Two key objectives of this initiative are;
- That it's bigger than 1 person - nobody is indespensible. It continues when I cease to exist.
- It is not dependent upon steemcurator or booming support to succeed.
Community Anti-Plagiarism Registration
The idea behind this is that a community "signs up" to actively fight plagiarism - by signing up, you agree to a specific (yet to be decided) set of terms and conditions. These could include:
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Delegations to @endingplagiarism for Downvoting
We've been down this route before (temporarily with the additional incentive of rewards).
I don't intend to go the rewards route again but with the desire from users to see plagiarised content downvoted, a centralised "downvoter" makes sense.
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Private Investigators 🔎
We created a few of these in the past and was @endplagiarism04's preferred approach (with an @endingplagiarism twist).
Private investigators scour the platform for abusive content but instead of highlighting it within "Mosquito Squishers", highlight it to community leaders (the idea of writing reports within this community and then some poor sod trawling through and checking them doesn't appeal to me).
Better still, community leaders "hire" or "allocate" somebody to do this role instead of having somebody they don't know assigned to them - but with a clear label within their community.
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Is it a bad idea to have a private detective in the "Mosquito Squishers" community right now?
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I don't think it's the best use of time but @endplagiarism04 may wish to continue with this initiative.
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But I have noticed that they have divided opinions and now who is the leader in the community? Mosquito Squishers
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The "new" initiative announced by endplagiarism04 was done by a user who didn't build up the reputation that the original user had established. That user posts regularly within this community and used his primary account to praise his own announcement. I've taken issue with this user's behaviour in the past and this action has done nothing to increase that confidence. Twice, he asked for steemcurator and booming support within that announcement which to me, conflicts with the objective of eradicating plagiarism.
If the "Private Investigator" approach is one that community leaders want, then good luck to those doing it and administering it (it won't be me because I tried that and it's not worth the effort).
I tried to take a back seat and as you'll have noticed recently, focussing my efforts away from individual acts of plagiarism which community leaders should be dealing with. I believe this is the strategy for the future, not the endless highlighting of articles that are upvoted by upvu and tipu which we simply have no power to combat. And with a few notable exceptions, users would rather delegate their Steem to get themselves upvoted than delegate to improve the platform for everybody.
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I understand this point.
I also agree that community leaders must combat plagiarism themselves, since without voting power it is difficult to have a fair fight against large accounts and in the end we are the loser.
If you had enough support, this would be another story.
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Great post and ideas, friend. It's amazing the hardwork you do regarding keeping Steemit safe from all those thiefs...
As well as that, thank you so much for your words about Writing & Reviews! We have taken plagiarism issue very seriously... but it's something that never seems to end. Count on us to fight this plague!
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Great 👌
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What is?
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Disappear Into The Abyss
Permanently retire and let Steemit head wherever it may go 👴
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"there were too many "vigilante" users posting notifications that were simply wrong or overkill - e.g. smashing a new user down for not referencing an image is totally unnecessary."
@endingplagiarism I guess you don't remember that the same happened with me and you you defended the guy who reported me because I forgot to add quotation marks on a post that was clear it wasn't mine nor did I try to present it as such. And it took me half an hour to convince you that I was not that kind of user. I asked you to check my history, if I had earned any money on Steemit or even perform a withdrawal. And in the end you indirectly admitted that it was a mistake but didn't have the courage to apologize. Meanwhile, the guy who reported me even to this day continues with his copy paste spam comments and never got any penalty. Instead he was rewarded for reporting me, while I never got an upvote whenever I reported spam and plagiarism. Both here and on Discord.
You try to present your self humble here and yet when I asked how could I apply for the same position that you saw a problem and offered the solution. Wow! Amazing. Nobody ever thought about moderating content on Steemit nor were there other moderators long before you appeared. And also pretending to be a volunteer and work for free? Really? We could all see your wallet. So, humble that you thought no other moderator was needed and you could have the entire Steemit platform under control. I don't know about the others but at least for me this heroic exit you are trying to perform is not believable or honest.
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Of course I remember you, you've done nothing but whinge about how unfair Steemit is ever since joining. I'm surprised you're still here.
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