Round #5 Users Rewriting/Spinning/Paraphrasing/synonymize

[LeGaulois]

User: @BTCWALK

It was a bit obvious to me that he wasn't the source of the long comments posted. A "normal" user doesn't have this habit of commenting, constantly posting long texts good enough for a blog post. A "normal" user has a mix of short-medium-long posts, participate in discussions, and other things.

I was pretty sure it was a pure translation, so I tried to reverse it with several languages, to no avail. Finally, I found out that he was simply rewriting texts he found online.
I don't believe he/she is using a text spinner tool (or I admit it's a good one) but rewriting manually, whatever, I still don't think it's something acceptable. Either you have your own opinion and participate in a discussion forum, or feel the need to play the parrot card in which case we don't need this.

Should it be moderated? I don't know if I'm the first one to notice him and nobody reported before, or it's considered ok "to steal the intelligence" of someone else?

An example:

The system has no balance. We can all see in the luxurious mansions of the wealthy San Francisco that only a few blocks away from the poor tents of the homeless. We can well feel this in individuals and certain businesses that do nothing better for civil society but earn ridiculous amounts of money. We can understand this by looking at those who are just as eager to spend money, and on the other hand, we are witnessing a very difficult situation for those whose debts have crushed their souls.

original text:

The system is rigged. We all can see it in the opulent residences of the rich in San Francisco which lie blocks away from the squalid tents of the homeless. We can feel it in the way that certain people and businesses do little to better civilization yet make ludicrous amounts of money. We can hear it in the frivolity with which certain people spend money and the morbid gravity of those whose souls are crushed by debt.

I could post other examples but it's time-consuming to find the sources, you can find it not by looking at the text but the thread's title. He/she doesn't spin titles

[1714951584]

1714951584

[1714951584]

1714951584

[AB de Royse777]

That cheating and should be considered as guilty as plagiarism. In fact, it is plagiarism the difference is that they have used article spinner so that words can be replaced by synonyms. Those who do black hat SEO they usually do it a lot.

I think we have talked about this before and the account should be banned.

[TryNinja]

Should it be moderated? I don't know if I'm the first one to notice him and nobody reported before, or it's considered ok "to steal the intelligence" of someone else?

I think so. I remember people reporting users for using "text spinning" tools (or doing it manualy) to disguise their plagiarism. I believe the consensus was that this is still plagiarism (or actually worse, since they are going a step further trying to hide it).

IMO (do not read this as an official forum statement), it's clearly plagiarism.  Changing a few words is still stealing the idea of the original author.  Try that trick at work as a journalist (or university) and see how fucking fast you're fired and shunned...  Without this type of rule folks could "word fuck" anything and claim it as there own.

All of the following are considered plagiarism:

-turning in someone else's work as your own
-copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
-failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
-giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
-changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
-copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether ---you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules)
Source: https://www.plagiarism.org/article/what-is-plagiarism

They do this is an attempt to hide their plagiarism and make it harder to detect. It's still plagiarism.

~

[actmyname]

General rule of thumb: if I know that I am willfully taking someone else's idea, I should be crediting them. This avoids the whole pedantically semantic trap of 'but what if it's general knowledge?' and all other crap.

[tbct_mt2]

No, it is not accepted.

[TIPS] to avoid plagiarism. It is an old way to plagiarise and is classified as Text spinning/disguised plagiarism.

2. Intentionally plagiarism
2.1. Fake Paraphrasing
It is a lowest level of plagiarism when people usually change just a few words from original texts/ posts.
2.2. Text Spinning
They intentionally use posts of others, and over paraphrase them using softwares.
Text spinning/disguised plagiarism
2.3. Translation Abusement
They intentionally use posts or part of posts of other members, such as from English, then using Google Translate in order to automatically translate those texts into local language, such as Russian or any local language they want; and vice versa.
New sort of plagiarism

[ChuckBuck]

I think he took the time to rewrite it  a hard-working guy 

Should it be moderated? I don't know if I'm the first one to notice him and nobody reported before, or it's considered ok "to steal the intelligence" of someone else?

I think it should be censored, it's purposeful plagiarism. Anyone who uses the ideas and words of others to use, it's plagiarism. Although the words he uses maybe different, the content doesn't change, he just avoids plagiarism detection. LeGaulois, you have great finding!
For every issue, what I have always been concerned about is its purpose, what does he do it for?

[erikoy]

Parapharsing is alright as long as the author of that phrase were being recognized or mention if not then it is still plagiarism taking ideas from others. In this case it is already considered as plagiarism because sentence by sentence clearly being copy intentionally.

This is a rare case and have not seen like this. Usually a post like this could not be hard to detect unless there is a keen observation being made. Well this is a good catch. This will lead others to investigate also other users that might doing this as well.

[Lucius]

Should it be moderated? I don't know if I'm the first one to notice him and nobody reported before, or it's considered ok "to steal the intelligence" of someone else?

I noticed the user in question because he started thread spamming in the Speculation board recently, and yesterday he switched to the Legal and Press board (that is deleted). I didn't report any posts because I wasn't sure if it was really plagiarism or something else, but now it's more than obvious that this is just a slightly more sophisticated type of plagiarism.

The user claims that this is his analysis, but it is definitely about plagiarism, and we know that the rules in this regard are quite clear.

Recently, I have posted many posts every day that contain my own analysis.

This analysis is my personal opinion. And as you know, no analysis is 100% correct.
be Lucrative &successful

[The Sceptical Chymist]

That's not paraphrasing, OP; that's word-substitution plagiarism.

We probably unknowingly paraphrase other people's ideas off the top of our heads when we write here, but most of us aren't looking at someone else's text when we're writing a post--and that's the difference.  That text-spinning shit is straight up plagiarism.

I think he took the time to rewrite it  a hard-working guy 

Yeah, assuming he didn't use a bot to do it.  And if he didn't, why not just put that same amount of effort into writing a post with your own thoughts?  I don't get it.

[actmyname]

I think he took the time to rewrite it  a hard-working guy 

Yeah, assuming he didn't use a bot to do it.  And if he didn't, why not just put that same amount of effort into writing a post with your own thoughts?  I don't get it.

Better question: why would anyone spend a large amount of effort in writing a post that takes ideas from another source, only to subsequently not mention to source even though the core parts are taken word-for-word idea-for-idea?

Intellectual dishonesty is not difficult to detect. Unless you're an idiot or if you have already absorbed the knowledge fully (and thereby transformed it into your own unique idea), it's never a bad idea to say, "taking from the ideas of <author>, ...," so I don't expect anyone to sympathize in this situation.

[Casdinyard]

An example:

The system has no balance. We can all see in the luxurious mansions of the wealthy San Francisco that only a few blocks away from the poor tents of the homeless. We can well feel this in individuals and certain businesses that do nothing better for civil society but earn ridiculous amounts of money. We can understand this by looking at those who are just as eager to spend money, and on the other hand, we are witnessing a very difficult situation for those whose debts have crushed their souls.

original text:

The system is rigged. We all can see it in the opulent residences of the rich in San Francisco which lie blocks away from the squalid tents of the homeless. We can feel it in the way that certain people and businesses do little to better civilization yet make ludicrous amounts of money. We can hear it in the frivolity with which certain people spend money and the morbid gravity of those whose souls are crushed by debt.

This was indeed a plagiarism. Paraphrasing is changing the whole context, from the positioning of the parts and figures of speeches to the whole context itself, onto your own vocabulary and your own word styling, AND indicating your idea's source (This is a common issue in academic papers and researches). The text you've accused didn't paraphrased at all, but rather synonymized ^[1] other words yet remains most of the literal words used, the idea, and the parts of speech.


[1] synonymize

to give or analyze the synonyms of (a word).

[TheUltraElite]

I remember seeing some threads pop up in "Services" about "word spinning" services, where someone is hired to use synonyms and similar phrases to rephrase an article and post it on several places, can be different forums. This reduces the chances of being nuked due to direct plagiarism but it is still a type of copy pasting.

I have also seen people do this - convert one article from English(1)>Russian(2)>English(3) and then the end result is that article (1) and (3) are not completely same. Maybe they used more than one machine translation service as well.

Chinese Whispers game anyone?

Anyway IMO it is similar to plagiarism and the user should be given same punishment that a plagiarist would get.

[stompix]

That's not paraphrasing, OP; that's word-substitution plagiarism.

I think the same, he is just replacing words not using different words for the same construction, thus can't be considered paraphrasing.
Interestingly enough, I also doubt he was using an automatic tool, I've tried to spin the text with all the text spinners in the first 20 results on google for such tools, none managed to get even close, so de did put some effort into it.

Original:

Why the system is so unfair is not at all obvious and is the source of much political confusion. People on the left think the rich get there through exploiting the poor.

But the reason for its unfairness is not entirely clear, and this in itself is the source of most political confusion. Leftists believe that the rich are abusing the poor.

No free text spinner will manage this.

In his defense, he did say in the beginning that it's now his work:

Jimmy Song is a well-known Bitcoin developer, writer, and entrepreneur. In his new paper, he explains why there is no balance in the world economic system and explains why Bitcoin can solve the problem. You can read this article below

but then why did he change the wording in the text?

Unless the user comes here and explains why did he do that probably will never find out why, as it makes little sense, even with all the desperate moves for merit fishing we're all seeing every day.

[Upgrade00]

This user caught my eye as I frequent the economy section and it was their style of writing (centering their texts and changing the color) that attracted me.
I replied to one of his post recently, which may have prompted him/her to switch to the press board;

This board is meant for discussions on speculations on the price of bitcoin. If you want to share articles without any context you can do so in the press board, although it has a prerequisite for only notable press hits.
Bitcointalk as a whole is meant for discussions and if you're sharing external contents it's usually better to include your own perspective to encourage discussions.

The user sometimes linked the source of their post or stated that it's not their opinion, I still however considered it unethical behavior contributing very little to discussions and simply sharing (paraphrased) contents. Checking their post history first page; the user has started 13 threads and made only 7 replies (all on their thread). This indicates a lack of interest in joining forum discussions.

[pugman]

I mean, I wouldn't perma-ban this person, only because the person put a little effort in changing words etc.

But I suppose, considering the user is relatively new, the mods could delete his synonymized posts, ban him for a day or two, and give a one-off warning regarding such posting and giving them the benefit of the doubt. My take on this might be considered to be quite controversial, but I still want to believe the good in people so. 

[ChuckBuck]

This analysis is my personal opinion. And as you know, no analysis is 100% correct.
be Lucrative &successful

What do we have here? He asserts that it is his idea   Damn guy! Already clear to understand when not having any links or sources mentioned in his post

Yeah, assuming he didn't use a bot to do it.  And if he didn't, why not just put that same amount of effort into writing a post with your own thoughts?  I don't get it.

My opinion, he can be a guy without any knowledge in this field, or simply he doesn't want to use his brain to create things for himself. It is always easier to rewrite ideas and analysis of others in his language than to think and write for himself. Maybe his brain feels lazy to think   He is hardworking compared to spammers, but a lazy when compared to content creators

He may also never be aware of this topic, and he will deny the allegations 

[Asuspawer09]

No, it is not accepted.

[TIPS] to avoid plagiarism. It is an old way to plagiarise and is classified as Text spinning/disguised plagiarism.

2. Intentionally plagiarism
2.1. Fake Paraphrasing
It is a lowest level of plagiarism when people usually change just a few words from original texts/ posts.
2.2. Text Spinning
They intentionally use posts of others, and over paraphrase them using softwares.
Text spinning/disguised plagiarism
2.3. Translation Abusement
They intentionally use posts or part of posts of other members, such as from English, then using Google Translate in order to automatically translate those texts into local language, such as Russian or any local language they want; and vice versa.
New sort of plagiarism

Agree, That is unacceptable and very obvious.

He just changes a few words or something we can already consider it plagiarism. Even paraphrasing should not be allowed since you just copy some sort of text in the internet and make it to something that is yours.

But in general, if you really know what you are saying you are constructing it on your mind anyway. And kind of answers could be or will be similar but copying the construction of the sentence etc. is not acceptable.

[morvillz7z]

I've checked BTCWALK's entire post history and to no surprise, it is filled with text-spinned articles, from top to bottom.

Nearly half, if not more, of his total 32 posts are plagiarized, mods should nuke his ass. He is your typical cheater trying to rank one more account.

I put my money on this thing being a spinner: Chinalesis

Assuming that ZURB and Chinalesis predictions are correct

archive: http://archive.vn/IXTPm#selection-565.0-565.58

[gentlemand]

I thought text spinning made you automatic toast? Am pretty sure I've seen it highlighted elsewhere and the consensus was that it's not only plagarism, it's sneaky plagarism.

It must be just as time consuming as writing your own drivel so it's never been something I've understood why people indulge in.

[suchmoon]

I thought text spinning made you automatic toast? Am pretty sure I've seen it highlighted elsewhere and the consensus was that it's not only plagarism, it's sneaky plagarism.

It must be just as time consuming as writing your own drivel so it's never been something I've understood why people indulge in.

I would assume they don't spin by typing different words in. There are websites that can do it so it's just one extra copy-paste compared to plain plagiarism.

But yeah, amazingly they think they're smart enough to evade detection - and to be fair it's not easy to detect text spinning - but once there is a suspicion it will all unravel quickly. And suspicion could be raised by something as simple as one odd word spotted by someone who has experience with that sort of shitheadery.