Bitcoin Forum

Veleor (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1177936) found a new sort of plagiarism: the user takes the Russian text, translates it using Google Translate and then places it on the forum.

Examples:

Copy:
Original:

---

Copy:
Original:

---

Copy:
Original:

This sort of plagiarism can meet not only in the English section, but also in other sections of the forum. Violators can use not only the Russian text. It`s quite difficult to detect it.

Two of those posts are merited by foserfox (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=485194) (the third is not viewable to me). The administration should look into if foserfox is also any of those three people, and ban him if so. I would be surprised if the evidence does not show they are not all the same.

I don't think playing "whack-a-mole" is the best way to deal with the plagiarism problem, I think the incentives to plagiarize should be removed, or the risks of plagiarizing increased, or a combination of the two.

One solution might be to require people pay a small fee for one, or a combination of the below:

• Rank up above "newbie" status
• To have any kind of signature
• To be eligible to receive merit
• To post outside of certain sections

I also looked at a few random pages of the two threads I can see, and it looks like there is little discussion among the thread participants in both of those threads, which helps allow plagiarized content to not stand out as much (it would be difficult to plagiarize content that is part of a conversation). A solution might be to disallow/lock threads in which it is apparent there is not much conversation between thread participants.

I have seen this in the german board a few times and its nothing new !

The most time i report it as an Translation spam if the translation isnt right !

Because if he only translate it and post the translated text its not a plagiarism in my eyes !

That's correct if he uses his own words to redact the post. But if he use an automatic translator and post it as it is word by word then it is plagiarism.
It is just another trick to avoid getting caught.

It's still plagiarism if they don't post a link to the original imo.

This is what is often done legitimately... If they'd just added a reference link then it wouldn't be plagiarism imo and they'd probably get merits for it still.

That's why he appeared on the first position there:
He was also auto-banned.
I don't known Russian, but the OP found interesting evidences that plagiariser merited other plagiarisers, and they both got auto-banned.

Yes, plagiarizing content related to a topic is a pretty difficult job, he would have to go through a hell lot of Russian websites, and find a related content to the topic on which he would be posting or else an off-topic post can clearly rise suspicion.

I don't understand what does the operator of this accounts earn from the copy-paste of this posts. He is using lower level accounts which obviously don't earn much, also he is not wearing any signature that takes him to zero income.

Are they spamming the forum for free? ???

The third (3) account @ vova.andreyan.94, @dnovsckym, @Ociwiw. Already got a ban.
So it's not active.

1. vova.andreyan.94 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1831060)  (Archived)
2. dnovsckym (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1680717)   (Archived)
3. Ociwiw (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1650016)  (Archived)

This account is not only copy / paste, but also Multi-account and avoid bans.

1. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1582336 [Manlog]
2. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1362595 [voron83-05]
3. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1362716 [Volk-05] (Archived)
4. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1831000 [vasilev456] (Archived)
5. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=183132 [seregaleon] (Archived)

Posted by: @dnovsckym: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2906478.msg36723860#msg36723860
Twitter
Twitter week 01.05.2018 - 09.05.2018
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archive (http://archive.is/w6GJE)


Posted by: @vasilev456
Week 7 (18.04-25.04)
Twitter Profile Link: https://twitter.com/NEVADGaming
Spreadsheet Number: 380

archive (http://archive.is/nvobO)


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archive (http://archive.is/EXFMl)

There might be another alt account.

I believe this type of plagiarism has been around for a long time, they don't get caught easily
"It`s quite difficult to detect it.", as you said, because there is no automated mechanism to find them
a standard search won't return any relation between the original and translated version
someone has to actually read both messages to know it's a plagiarism then report it

If they had to find content related to a specific post, they might as well write content themselves. This is the point. This kind of rule would also make threads more interesting and less hard to read because there would be fewer posts that add zero to the conversation.
Once they are banned, any signature they had is removed. I can only speculate as to what he is doing. Some of these people might be participating in FaceBook, Instagram and whatnot advertising campaigns, while hoping to rank up with plagiarized posts in order to eventually participate in a signature campaign or otherwise earn additional money with the higher rank.

This isn't really anything new right? Just a slightly more clever way of committing plagiarism as it'd be a huge hassle going to need to Google translate fishy topics/replies.

Not saying that this isn't a problem though. It's going to be a lot harder as the people who are going to plagiarize a few statements(instead of copying the whole reply) is mostly going to be undetected. You're mostly going to need to understand the 2nd language to be totally sure if the topic/reply is plagiarized or not.

But, they should know the basic rules of operating under any forum if they want to earn from it, which is no copy-paste. I think this values as an universal rule on most of the online forum's. Ranking up is a pretty hard goal for them, as it would just ban more and more of their accounts if they keep on doing this. Not a smart way of earning maybe.

---

I am just guessing that there could be a ring of all those accounts and most of them are also abusing merit system by sending one merit to rank up to jr.member. They all could be alt of there merit sender's too.

I have found one more similar case. I don't know Russian language by the way, hope any native person could verify it. I confirmed it by Google translate.


Original:


Source: https://medium.com/bitcoin-review/нoвaя-дeнeжнaя-пapaдигмa-4cfa2a1b44f7

Copied: ( archive  (https://archive.fo/6XS0B))

Agree with you Lafu.
Translate mass media posts is not plagiarism.
But the users should include the original source of the post.

For example:
You write something about "Be the rich", then I translate your post to my native language

People will assume that post came from me, not from you.
The worst things, if some people found your post, they will think you've stolen my idea.

What do you think about that?

IMO

like other said here,
If you do a translation of a topic this is fine and usefull in many cases (exept the google translation spams) but at least you need to mention the source.
otherwise it is stolen ideas and content which is plagiarism.

and yes it make it really hard to find. much more than direct copy past topics.

It's the same, it's still plagiarism, if not we could buy books with "Macbeth" and "Hamlet", by Pang Qing or Mustafa Ashkar.
It's not his work!

Back to the main subject, I think the tactic is pretty old. I've come across many posts from Russian speakers (based on their history) and they posts followed the same pattern with short phrases that don't make 100% sense in English. Obvious they were translated but it's a damn pain in the ass to try to find the source for somebody not used to the Cyrillic alphabet.

Right. This is not the first time when some members are trying to fool forum users this way:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4997729.msg45093762#msg45093762

You are misunderstanding what plagiarism is.

Even if the user was to rewrite it completely it would still be plagiarism. It is just harder to detect.

Also even google translate does better than translating word by word now. It doesn't make it any less plagiarism.

These people can be tagged/banned for plagiarism and/or using automated translation tools to gain visibility/activity/whatever.

Yeah, translating someone else's words and claiming they're your own is still plagiarism IMO and I'm pretty sure that's considered plagiarism by bitcointalk standards as well.  Plagiarism doesn't just mean a straight-up copy/paste of someone else's work.

You'd think with all the effort that goes into actually finding some text that fits a reply, then translating it and pasting it into a reply on this forum that it'd be much less effort to just write a short shitpost, even if you can't write in English (or whatever language) that well.  Apparently not.  The lengths these plagiarists go to baffles me.

Of course they know what they are doing is against the rules, that is why they are taking the extra step of translating the content before plagiarizing it. If they didn't know what they are doing is against the rules, they would post the content in its original published language.

You are mistaken. The relevant portion of the definition of plagiarism is passing someone else's writing off as your own. These people are not passing off this writing as being published by someone else, they are passing it off as if they wrote it themselves. There needs to be something within the post disclosing it is not original content, or that it is translated content.

It is not new that people are using google translate to post in sections of languages they cannot speak/read/write, this happens frequently in forums with communities spanning multiple countries, but it is new for someone to copy content that is not their own and pass it off as their own after translating it.

I'm saying the truth.
Plagiarizing not same with translating.
For example, you translate a song lyrics to Chinese language, Is this action includes plagiarism? Of course not.
It's just translating.
Then you publish your translate that song lyrics to your blog, Is this plagiarism? No.

But, the action is doesn't right and totally violates the law and infringes copyright.
This forum requires an additional rule about how to post the translations.
My suggestions:
If they don't do it, then they deserve to be banned.

I would refer you to Merriam Webster (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plagiarize):
Nothing in any of the posts cited in the OP are claiming to be anything other than the authors original words. No additional rules are necessary.

Thanks for referring.
But just quote half of definition.

The full definition is:
Btw, can I say you do plagiarism by "half" your definition?   ::)

One more thing, tell me, how should I quote the words in http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-source?commentId=2003008%3AComment%3A52186, the first paragraph. Then post it on the forum

rewrite it completely is not quite the same as translate it completely. I would think a rewrite makes it not plagiarism while an accurate translation makes it plagiarism.  A rewrite means  more change then a translation does.  But I suppose it is a matter of semantics.
 

A proper translation IS rewriting.

Did you ever read a book that wasn't written in the authors language? Which name was on the cover? The translators?

Yes it is a matter of semantics, and you are wrong.

Quite frankly, the real reason we have this copy/paste rule is so we don't get inundated with bots/spammers/lazy signature slingers. It would be so easy for a bot to just copy content from the internet, google translate it, and then post the results here. Bitcointalk wants real conversations. I think if an account is caught doing a copy-paste-google translate-copy paste routine, they should be banned if they don't include references of some sort.

It is not new and also it not limited to the Russian translation only. I found somebody google translated the Portuguese to English.
I think you guys might be surprised to know that some of the comments/articles were copied from here to other sites . (Don.t know how to report them , I remember they were published in Medium)

I'll use this thread to appeal for help to bust this guy: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1153977

He's part of the Stake.com army of spammers. I got him a week long ban about 10 days ago for flooding various boards with one line spam. Now he's back with Google Translated spamming. He posts frequently in the Spanish local section, so I can only assume the source material he is stealing is in Spanish. It's fairly obvious by the speed at which he is making new posts, the poor English and grammar, and the usually telltale mistranslations, such as when he translated book titles:

A Random Walk Down Wall Sreet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Random_Walk_Down_Wall_Street)

The Little Book That Still Beats the Market (https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Little+Book+That+Still+Beats+the+Market-p-9780470624159)

However, try as I might, I can't find a source to report him. Perhaps a native Spanish speaker may be able to help? Or a mod could just ban him anyway for nonsense spamming?

That user violated several forum rules (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0):

The rule is clear enough.
And IMO that's enough for the mod to ban that guy.

Yeah, that's the point I'm making. I'm very confident he has broken those rules, and his posts are auto-translated from (probably) a Spanish source. After reporting many, many other users for the same thing, it becomes fairly obvious after a while. But unless someone can definitively find one of those sources, then we don't have any hard proof on which to issue a ban.

The owner of the article has the right to copyright. We can say that there is a literary theft. As for the translation from one language to another, I think the source should be placed on the publisher only.

"A Random Walk Down Wall Street" book can be read at:
http://site.iugaza.edu.ps/wdaya/files/2013/03/A-Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street.pdf
On page-4, you will see this:

"The Little Book That Still Beats the Market" book can be read at:
http://www.poslovni.hr/media/PostAttachments/1203672/Joel%20Greenblatt%20-%20The%20Little%20Book%20That%20Beats%20the%20Market.pdf
Check on page 6, you will see the copyright of that book.

About the "copyright limitations and exceptions", you can read on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright#Limitations_and_exceptions

You can report the plagiarism with that prove.

I only included the titles of the books as examples of making it obvious he is using an auto-translating tool. If you can prove that he has plagiarized from either of those books, then yes, please report it and get him banned. I don't think he has however, or at least, not from the English versions. He may well have from the Spanish versions, but I don't speak a word of Spanish and reverse translating from his garbled English won't get me back to exactly the same as the original. Hence my appeal for a native Spanish speaker.

Most frequently, in most forums, mods will give forum members many warnings before handing out bans, especially permanent bans unless they are doing something especially damaging or egregious (such as spreading malware, or unfortunately seems to be a problem here, plagiarism).

You can send him a PM if you have concerns about him using automatic translations with a source that it is against the rules, and if you continue seeing him do this, you can complain about him.

Neither of the cited posts are plagiarism, at least not the portions of which he is talking about those books because he is at least making an attempt to cite the author as the source. If there is another writing not by the author that makes similar comments, it would be plagiarism.

It is possible he took his 10 day ban as a warning to put more effort into his posts.

For Diamond Member,
There are so many Warnings. Forum rules, guides, and lots of Ban Appeals in Meta board. I don't think we need personal warnings for such things that repeatedly asked and answered in the forum. Users should spend their time to read them. If they don't spend time to read them, learn from them, they should not complain when someday perma-bans dropped on them. If they are lazy and want to learn with their own stories, let they do and get what they want. It's fair.