Bitcoin Forum

Edit 23/05/2019 :


Locking the thread
Many thanks.
Bounty cancelled.

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Dear BitcoinTalk community,
In the light of the recent change of Ban policy by Theymos :



I would like to come in front of you to reconsider my case.


Which account I am talking about :
guigui371 : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=207818
A.K.A the "honeymoon guy" (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5087992.msg48824042#msg48824042)  Copyright Suchmoon

When was I banned ?
-> I was banned in October 2018

Read the full story here :  My Legendary account has been banned - I accept my punishment, now what ?  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5056278.0)

Why was I banned ?
-> I copied, and pasted a message, once in June 2018

Why did you do it ?
-> I didn't have a signature at that time, I needed to make a post to partake into an airdrop, I was in a hurry,  I cheated.
(you can read more in this thread that i locked : My Legendary account has been banned - I accept my punishment, now what ?  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5056278.0) )
What is done is done I can't undo it. I thought that transforming and improving an existing post was ok, turns out it is still plagiarism (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5056278.msg47242836#msg47242836).


Many things have been proposed as an alternative to permaban.
When I am writing this message only 24% of people want to see permaban to stay permaban (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5087992.0).
76% are ok to give a second chance with some kind of counterparty (mainly no more signature). The panel is 136 voters.

I repeatedly said that I would not oppose a permanent sig ban forever (like, no appeal ever !) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5056278.msg48092934#msg48092934).



Theymos put some kind of frame on how to appeal a permaban : to prove that are "positive" for the forum.
I am not really very established  member in the Meta / English part of the Forum.
And to be fair, even in the French board I was very involved in 2014 /2015/2016 but not that much in 2017 and 2018.

However I have dug in my past to find posts that show that I am somehow more a "positive" than a "negative" for the forum.
Here are my arguments :


1) I am a nice guy !

*) I made a newly wed Australian cry  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=659146.msg7415464#msg7415464)
This is who I am, a very nice and generous soul. When i can help I do. I saw someone that needed help, lent money without any counterparty and without any interest


*) back in 2014 I wrote a french topic about VanityGen (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=664082.msg7487945#msg7487945), way before it became cool.

*) warning people that BTC forks like BTC Diamond and others are somehow risky as you have to expose your private key to get them. That user was asking how to extract the seed of his ledger (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3274307.msg34799246#msg34799246) to claim the BTC diamond

2) I am not a signature spammer
I have only posted 37 messages in 2018 (well, only 8 months of posting).
I have posted about 240 messages in 2017
And a grand total of about 900 messages for 2016/2015/2014

3) I have checked, I didn't plagiarize any other message.
So I spent the time, I have read through all my messages from 2018/2017/2016 and 2015 (i stopped searching past jan2015) and couldn't find any posts that even remotedly look plagiarized.
As a matter of Fact I'll give $200usd to whoever can find a plagiarised message in that time frame (2018/2017/2015) Yogg (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=140827)has agreed to be Escrow, i'll fund him shortly (24h/48h).
The French moderator Halab (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1053119)volunteer to be the referee in the event of a post being brought forward as plagiarised.
As this has been the case in my previous thread (locked) about messages that were not plagiarised, just poorly written (like this example brought by Xal0lex , and explained as not plagiarized by Vit05 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5056278.msg47224139#msg47224139))


4) I promise I will be a good member
Well this is hard to prove, however I only need to convince one of two persones : Theymos or hilariousandco


Message to Theymos with his PGP key :


I couldn't find hilariousandco's pgp key, maybe you can ask Theymos what i wrote or if you send me your pgp i'll send you the same information.




5) People seems to be keen to give second chance, let me prove you I am worthy.
Let me quote below messages from my previous topic that show that some members are not totally against giving me a second chance.


I said that I would be okey for a signature ban.

--



I am ok to be stripped out of my signature (forever), I have offered money for people to review my account (it is a one off bounty if they are successful).

--

This is also a good idea and I would love to be offered this deal.

--

I have started a bounty, $200 to find a plagiarised for from me from 2018/2017/2016/2015 I will fund it soon.





Conclusion :

If I was given a second chance I'll prove you all that what I did was a silly mistake and that I can be a quality member.

I do think a permanent ban for a single instance of plagiarism from a legendary person is a bit harsh. Especially considering the person isn’t reasonably a signature spammer. The underlying reason seems to be financial though.

What a stupid comment.

No one is going to wait - they will search now, nothing will be found, you won't fund the escrow... but then you'll claim you offered $200 when you really didn't...

For what it's good for, I can escrow that amount and will release the bounty as said ; "to whoever can find a plagiarised message in that time frame (2018/2017/2015)" involving the banned account.
If you accept, William8062, please send the bounty to my escrow address labeled BTC2 in my escrow thread :


However, please bear in mind that I will be hardly available before next sunday to release the bounty (travelling)

Keep your nasty opinion for yourself,
I wrote this message at 2am French time, Yogg was very likely in bed.
I needed time to get the BTC address from him.
Then in my local time it was 2pm, I need to go home to do the transfer.
Also the memepool is full so the tx are not done in a timely manner.  

Now, that Yogg has answered, I Have funded the address (well, the Tx has been initiated, now it is all about confirmation).




Thanks Yogg,
I have funded the address with 0.04BTC
Funds are coming from Binance, the Tx is still "processing" and should be visible soon.  

Since you are french, and in the even of someone finding something they claim is plagiarism, I kindly ask that you get Halab's (french modo / staff) opinion before releasing the funds.


Thanks


Edit :
Funds finally showing  : https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/31p4TPyq3WadF9umDKURZR35aMQTaBbKaZ

Nope, the forum should have a fair treatment for all ranks, not only Ledgendary or Hero members.
Before the merit system launched day, you and other members in the forum become Hero or Legendary members from your actitivites (postcounts) and time spent in the forum.
In addition, being a Hero or Legendary member does not mean that you have more contributions to the forum, and / or your post quality is better than users that have lower ranks.
Permanent bans for plagiarisms are always a harsh punishments. I don't know exact the rule is but it most likely that with plagiarism, violators have only one chance.
Only one plagiarism found, and perma ban comes (maybe I am wrong, but I think I am right at this point).
Now, what's the fair treatment if Legendary can say "Oh, I did not read the rule carefully since my first, second weeks or months in the forum, and it happened years ago".

It is the same case for lower users, who maybe did copy and paste (plagiarise) in their early days. By which I meant, something like they copied and pasted specifications of coins, without awareness that they plagiarise with that action. The common thing I saw is it seems that plagiarism tend to occur in early period of forum users, when they don't have enough understandings about the forum rules.
Then, when they got banned, they wont' have chance to return because they are Full Member, or Senior Members. Is it fair for them???

I agreed that Hero or Ledgendary members have their long histories in the forum to look back, investigate and find out their contributions in the forum. Faults are faults, they can not deny that. The point is, in my opinion, what we should look back is:
If users plagiarised with stupid faults in its first, second, tenth posts in the forum, or early months in the forum, just for example, we can make further investigation about their purpose of those faults, and their contributions in the forum.
Now, the next question might occur:
"How about posting bots, that tend to copy and paste from time to time?"
Yes, it is easy because they are bots, they often plagiarise with their templates, so it is easy to find, and they won't have chance to complain about perma bans.

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In a nutshell, I don't think that what theymos implied that cases in the forum will be sorted out hands-by-hands are only applied for Ledgendary or Hero because he likely a reasonable guy who have intention to give as fair treatments for all users as possible.

I think this could be the reason. You have not mentioned a real source:

One of the link mentioned there takes to this thread but nothing similar there:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=450381.0

---

COPIED:


FROM:

Even if you aren't part of any signature campaign that time there is no excuse for the plagoarism you have done. A lot of newbies who aren't part of any sig campaigns are permabanned because of plagiarism why should the exempt or have another view towards you? Also if you think about it you still did plagiarism in order for you to earn money in the forum via airdrop which makes no difference in your line of reasoning. I don't know what's the extent of  theymos when he meant "case to case" but I don't think he will be accepting all the appeals he receives in the forum.

I am not a historian, but it looks like you might have gotten this backwards. I am looking at a 2014 calendar, and May 12 is actually after February 27.

The OP's post appears to actually be the one that was plagiarized.

Wow this is a good find.
It was definitly not my intention to plagiarism,
If anything i was answering to a question.
Let me put my message in full.
I will highlight in blue the question asked by a member and in red my answer to it.








Then i did put the source, if anything i forgot to put the english part between " "
But it is pretty obvious that since i am writing something in english quite technical, followed by the link to the official thread then a quick answer in french my intention was to provide info to the person asking and not fooling them in believing that i wrote the content.

This shouldn't be considered plagiarism, at best a mistake made by someone that was only on the forum for a few weeks/ months and eager to help.

Thanks for this finding, it doesn't qualify for the bounty as i limited it to 2018/2017/2016/2015

Thanks

haha good spotting.

But anyway, I definitely didn't write the part in english, I have given an explanation in the message above.
It definitely comes from someone else, but i was not trying to pass it as my own writings.





Thanks for you opinion, as per the "title" of the thread 2 people have been unbanned in the past 3 weeks.
I'm asking if i can be the 3rd.

Actually the content is quite common copied by more projects as FAQ. I have found more examples but the OPs one was posted before I agree and I already found some traces of same content in the thread listed in the post.

Someone quoted it here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=450381.msg5107429#msg5107429

The content was probably in the OP of the post mentioned as reference and it was edited later and delete from there.

Still, I think he should have just quoted the text instead of copy pasting it directly.

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I am not here for your above bounty neither I am taking interest because of this. I often do this here in my free time ;D

The content may have been copied from the post quoted by the post you cited. However I do not think you are describing plagiarism, and it is certainly not something the OP should be banned, nor punished (by forum administration) for, as he clearly cited a source:
When it comes to plagiarizing, people will be banned when they pass off someone else's words as their own, not when they use BB code incorrectly, or make mistakes when citing the source to the extent that it is still clear there is a source, and the content is not original.

Let me first admit I didn't read through all the related topics. But from what I've read, I don't think this should lead to a permban.
As far as I know, the plagiarism bans got so strict only because of many users spamming the forum with other people's text to earn money (or more recently Merit). On any other forum I know, users don't get banned if they copy some text that can help someone else, and it's a pretty common thing to do since the beginning of the internet. But on any other forum I know, posts don't lead to direct earnings, so it's not a big problem there.
Of course the classic "everybody else does it too" is not an excuse, but I think it's worth to differentiate between illiterate spammers who use this forum as an ATM, and real users who slip somewhere.

Note: I don't know guigui371 at all, and I can't read French.

Thanks LoyceV

I did do a copy and paste, Suchmoon found it back in october
The message you need to read is here :     proof i plagiarised  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5056278.msg47242836#msg47242836)


I hope you will still feel the same "I could potentially be un-banned"

cheers

Well, at least you admit it. But even if you were posting for signature earnings, I think you would have earned the same when you wouldn't have copied anything and only posted your own additions. I can believe this was a honest mistake from someone who doesn't know this forum is so strict on plagiarism.

A long signature ban would probably work.

My main concern is that us fighting off plagiarism from spammers leads to collateral damage by banning real users who wouldn't be banned if spammers wouldn't use plagiarism at such a massive scale. This forum and the Bitcoin ecosystem needs real users.

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Let me bring in this example (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1926895.msg19837677#msg19837677): I reported the user for plagiarism in 2017. I didn't appreciate how he copied my text to compete with my own service. He didn't get banned. I'm okay with that now, as it's better for the forum not to ban real users for small things, and I think his case is quite similar to yours.

It's quite clear that a precedent has been set even copy and pastes for financial gain can be over turned if you can demonstrate you are a keen and valuable member. Chibitcty is a valuable trader we need all the traders we can get so he came back with a sig ban. I support that.

I think you should be given the same opportunity to return without a sig for a year or 2 or whatever theymos thinks is fair. People supporting bitcoin for all of these years should not be kicked out for good unless they do it again. Most people here are not real enthusiasts and just here to milk some money from the board. So take the sigs away and if they still contribute then they are worth keeping.

The only thing I would like to say is despite being the 3rd country in BTC nodes, the french speaking community on bitcointalk is relatively small, and most of members were even just bounty hunters/spammers in the recent past.


AFAIK guigui371 is not working in the IT area but despite that he courageously tried to put his hands in the stuff. As you can see he made a tutorial about vanitygen in 2014, and he's using PGP.... Unfortunately only few people in the french speaking section are doing this kind of things, only few people talk about technical subjects currently.
So I really think he's a valuable member for the french speaking community.


https://datalight.me/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/25.02_top-20_nodes-01.png

I hope this question is not too dumb: Is copying content from another website also considered plagiarism?

If yes, i found only one post from July 2017 that clearly got copied.

Copied: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1782724.msg20085279#msg20085279
Original content: http://www.etudes-fiscales-internationales.com/media/02/00/1590489700.pdf


Though i want to say that every other post seems to be written in OP's own words with no signs of plagiarism or spam.
If i may share my opinion about this case: a signature ban should be enough.

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Edit: Sorry for my mistake.

Hi, there is no such thing as a dumb question.


This "message" has already bring brought forward and deemed not to be a plagiarism,
At best a mistake not using "  "

What I write in french is :
"I am not in any of the 16 below cases
1)
2)
3)"
...


See this part of my very first message on top of this thread


Thanks

A few words about this case.

Since I've been on this forum (not very long compared to some members here), and even more since I'm moderator of the french section, I've been paying attention to the banning of french members, and there are more than one who have been caught (whatever their rank).

I had the opportunity to talk a little with Guigui (William8062), I looked at his posts history. I concluded that he was not a troll, not a sig spammer, not a scammer. He is a good guy, ready to help. Maybe I'm wrong, but I wouldn't have made that kind of message for not many other french members.

I will not put my testicles in the balance, but if it is clear that there has been only one real case of plagiarism, I support this ban appeal and ask my superiors to reconsider the permanent ban for a more appropriate punishment.

I am not sure thymos will consider this ban appeal but I saw that some members you mentioned on title were unbanned even after they violated the forum rules because they can be good asset to this forum so losing them is just a big lose to the forum as well so they are unbanned with signature ban for certain level so it might be implemented on your account as well.

But if more people got unbanned from appealing then it might be the time to give alternative punishment to plagiarism like permanent signature ban so if they did on financial motivation then they have no use if it.

That may be so, but it isn't right.  And on top of all that, people are usually earning money when they plagiarize someone's text, which makes it so much worse. 

I'm not a big fan of Theymos's declaration that there will be some exceptions to the rule, but such is life.  I think if he's going to allow successful appeals, they should be granted only for exceptional members who've contributed a lot to the community and only rarely.  By rarely, I mean probably 3 cases per year.  Rank shouldn't have anything to do with it, nor am I sad when a Legendary account gets busted for plagiarizing something.  There are plenty of shitposting sig spammers who ranked up that much before the merit system.

Anyway, I don't think OP is the best candidate for a ban lift.

LOTS of thing can come under the " it isn't right" heading here.... "on top of that they are making money" ..." shit posting sig spammers"

Your reasoning here seems to be polluted by a certain bias, so must be treated with caution. I will demonstrate why...

Let us consider the OP a person that did one or 2 copy and pastes to earn a tiny amount of money compared to someone (you) who  greedily and sneakily created a sock puppet to racist troll sig spam to make much more money and actually was busted shifting from one sig campaign to another to get even MORE money??

Why would the OP be banned and you who have done worse (IMHO) get to be a DT and merit source with no red trust?

This I feel quite obviously illustrates that the OP should not be perm banned.

I don't support ANYONE getting banned if they are willing to show they are sorry and won't do it again (except proven scammers). If I was theymos in this situation I would just remove BOTH of your sigs for a few years so that you can demonstrate you are both real enthusiasts and will contribute here for free.

I feel on matters of trust the readers must be given access to all possible information especially on those advocating punishment of others so that we may attribute the correct value to their contributions.

The op has already been vouched for by a mod of his own local board so we can see he is also a valuable contributor.

To ensure fair and equal treatment of all persons then precedents and similar prior incidents should be given strong
consideration.

Thank you all for the support message and the feedback (positive and negative ones).

I am trying to find hilariousandco 's pgp key,
Has it been published anywhere ?
I did search the forum and also on google.

Regards

Plagiarism is one of the worst thing people can do, not only in crypto as well as in the forum, but also in other aspects of our lives.
In academic environment, plagiarism is the worst things students or researchers can do. Whenever plagiarism found, they have to face with very bad things, such as attitude of colleagues, punishments from professors, schools or universities.
I don't know the fact that most of users who plagiarised in the forum come from the third world, from developing countries or not, but I guess it is.
In the third world, people almost don't care about plagiarism because there is no punishments on them, even authorities, universities don't care too much or educatate them enough about plagiarism.
Maybe, their faults partially come from poor systematic education they have in their nations, but the things are different when they joined the forum.
Wherever they come from, plagiarisms are plagiarisms, and since they are forum users, they have to accept the rules here.
It should be like this and honestly I give theymos a big round of applause for such kind-hearted hands-by-hands approach.
It's the point. Why we only take care about Legendary members who got perm bans due to plagiarism?
It is clearly unfair approach, if we keep doing like this.
Everyone should  be treated equally, have same rights, same appeal rights in the forum.
So if Legendary members can be reconsidered for their faults, lower users should have the same chance.
For example:
If someone like nullius got permban, will he have chance to come back and got ban unlift? I think he should have such a chance no matter which rank he has.
Demotions on high ranks should be another further steps to clean up the forum, but I doubt theymos will do it.
There is no place that can give perfect fairness, and we can not ask theymos do it.
Moreover, the era when the forum become a better place and opportunities for old generations of high rank users from Senior to Legendary members to join good payment campaigns has started. They will be competitive by self-made users, and they will become less competitive, obviously.

I don't know Guigui but banning him because he copied part of a generic message to participate in an airdrop seems a bit harsh. Plus he didn't copy an important text, it was just a random valueless message from another member here.
Many have done kind of the same thing, saying "good project" or else just to be eligible for one of these airdrops. It's spam, it's annoying but people don't get banned for this afaik. He could have posted a one-liner like this, he didn't. That's what got him where he is now.
From his post history, it's obvious he's not a scammer nor an idiot. I don't think he saw any harm in what he was doing.

I recently learned that a few years ago account selling was tolerated. Now it's still authorized but you lose your account for doing such a thing. Maybe in a few years, we'll change our minds on that plagiarism rule as well. Circumstances change, rules do too. Why not treat each case individually ? I'm not saying this because he had a Legendary account but just because he has proven to be a valuable member of this community. I agree that rules should be the same for everyone, whatever your status but still there is a difference between a spammer/bounty hunter and a guy who's been here for 5 years and has (apparently) never done anything wrong.

He obviously cares about his account, he even asks for his right to a signature to be revoked. So why not give him a chance ?

Bounty still available for whoever wants to prove me wrong. 
Proof of funding :



Unlocking condition :
Both Yogg (French trusted escrow) and Halab (French modo) have to agree that it is a plagiarism and not just a "quote" omission.



Good luck to everyone

Even Though I hate copy pasta, you are actually one of the cases I would side to unban. we don't know each other but I took the time to read through all of this thread and you are a valuable member of the community - you are a dick for copy pasting and maybe a double dick for not reading the rules, but the good far outweighs the bad.

Did you sent PM to theymos or hilariousandco for your case?
I hope you should get the chance.

Plagirism.does.not only consist of copy and pasting word for word. It is the idea that should one look for when you think that a post was being plagiarized.

Now, if OP add some of wordings and combine it with the article and it as reference. then there could be no problem at all. But, OP owning the idea then it is considered as plagiarism.

Here in the forum,  posting a short thread or post might be hard to identify as plagiarism of course some of us may have the same opinion at the time the reply was posted.

Yes I learnt my lesson.
Believe me, I'll be a much better member from now on (if my ban get uplift into a sig ban).




I did message @Theymos and @hilariousandco  a few times about my ban appeal,
I guess they must be very busy, plenty of things going on the forum right now.

Update : the bounty is still available for whoever wants to prove me wrong in my statement  (see 1st post for T&C).
However the Escrow is quite impatient and gave me up to the end of the month before returning the funds.

Regards

I think you should update your OP with Halab's post and make sure to do weekly bump. I guess you should be fine with 1 year sig ban because you are already banned for more than 60 days( general duration of temp ban).