Do you think some plagiarism can happen "by mistake"?

[PrimeNumber7]

What do you think? Is plagiarism always intentional or can there be some specific cases in which it is not? It is not clear to me.

I think Mpamaegbu likely intentionally plagiarized his post. The post in question is several years old, and I am not sure if he was participating in a signature campaign at the time. IMO he is sufficiently established of a forum member that a temp ban, rather than a permaban would probably be in order.

Although none of the cases in the OP apply, there are potential situations in which plagiarism could be "unintentional". For example, someone could copy content from multiple sources to make a well-rounded argument, and not properly cite said sources. If someone can quote many sources to make a coherent post that is informative and on-topic, I would be okay with allowing them to receive a warning. The sources would need to be diverse enough to show the person was putting in substantial effort into his post, and the post needs to be something that the average user reading the subject thread would find interesting, and not believe to be nonsense.

[1714042041]

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[1714042041]

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[The Sceptical Chymist]

I bet he now regrets joining BestChange at all, as he could have continued to live happily in the Roobet campaign and no one would have been any wiser.  

He probably does, but I know that the forum meant a lot to him and I think he's probably devastated about this--and personally I feel bad that he got banned now that I know what the situation is.  I was helping him rank up by doing monthly post history reviews for him (he was one of the few who took me up on my offer), so I know he was trying his best to be productive, and I still have a very hard time believing he committed plagiarism on purpose, hoping he'd get away with it.

How about introducing three strikes rule? First strike - a warning, second strike - a temporary ban, third strike - a permanent ban.
In essence, this would eliminate serial plagiarists and give those who inadvertently plagiarized a second chance.

That's a bad idea, IMO.  If the first consequence you got for plagiarizing something was a warning, there would be members trying their luck at getting away with it left and right.  Plus the moderators don't have the time, patience, and probably even the resources to track every member through each stage of that proposed system.  They already spend enough time just checking reports and making judgements as to whether to delete posts that to add something like that on top of their workload would make it untenable.

Plus, I think that's been proposed and rejected at least once before.  I'm pretty sure Theymos wouldn't go for it.

I think Mpamaegbu likely intentionally plagiarized his post. The post in question is several years old, and I am not sure if he was participating in a signature campaign at the time. IMO he is sufficiently established of a forum member that a temp ban, rather than a permaban would probably be in order.

You could be right; I don't know.  As I said, I can't read his mind to see what his intentions really were.  I do agree that a temporary ban might be more suitable for a member like him, and I could all but guarantee he'd never repeat his "mistake" again.

[UserU]

Guys, I was told he'll be creating an appeal thread soon.

Let's see how things go. Who knows, perhaps the mods/ staffs could look into his case (again)?

[witcher_sense]

Add my two satoshi...

Plagiarism is always intentional and simply cannot occur by mistake. However, in my opinion, there are two types of plagiarism namely conscious copypasting and unconscious one. The first definition means a person knows what is going on, he steals someone else's work and never gives credit to the original author. Unconscious plagiarism is also intentional, but the difference is a person takes someone else's work and never gives credit not because of bad intentions but forgetfulness, carelessness, or, in some cases, due to lack of knowledge of how to correctly highlight someone else's message. The problem is it is almost infeasible to figure out whether a person had bad intentions or not, was it conscious plagiarism or temporary stupidity.

[Frengki_cisco]

I once quoted what @theymos said about the plagiarism case, theymos said.

Common rule violations

These are the most common rule violations that newbies make. There are other rules than these.

• Plagiarism: If you copy some text from somewhere, then you should have a good reason for it, and you must link to the source. Doing otherwise is plagiarism. Changing a few words around doesn't matter. If we find that you plagiarized, then you absolutely will be permanently banned, even if we find it years after you did it.

What do you think? Is plagiarism always intentional or can there be some specific cases in which it is not? It is not clear to me.

if you understand the content above in terms of words, the words 100 percent lead to one of the media articles, google no bargaining penalties apply and it's on purpose.

The opposite is 100 percent words, but what is found in the article is only 20-30 percent, maybe it's coincidentally the same words, not on purpose, not included in cases of plagiarism.

[sheenshane]

Plagiarism is always intentional and simply cannot occur by mistake.

Possible.
But IMO, it could be a case-to-case basis and if you can see the (accused being plagiarized) post of Mpamaegbu, the intention could be possible is to show a reference or content that come from the online article (or somewhere else) but the big mistake is, Mpamaegbu forgot to include the link or must be quoted it from the original author, which is this is very strong evidence by suspecting of being a plagiarist.  So IMO, that could be a mistake by him by not being accredited to the original author.

There's no problem even if he copied the entire content but there's a link to the original source.

Just my two sats and waiting for the best result of Mpamaegbu.

[airfinex]

Just my two sats and waiting for the best result of Mpamaegbu.

I am one of those people who like to shake the nerves of others, so if Mpamaegbu successfully appeals against the ban and is unbanned, I will provide new evidence since I have something in store. I am such an obnoxious brute only on weekends, on other days I enjoy watching such scandals drinking Piña colada.

[PrimeNumber7]

But IMO, it could be a case-to-case basis and if you can see the (accused being plagiarized) post of Mpamaegbu, the intention could be possible is to show a reference or content that come from the online article (or somewhere else) but the big mistake is, Mpamaegbu forgot to include the link or must be quoted it from the original author, which is this is very strong evidence by suspecting of being a plagiarist.  So IMO, that could be a mistake by him by not being accredited to the original author.

There are a lot of people who basically copy entire articles in a thread and have a citation at the bottom of the post. This is not plagiarism, but IMO is another problem as the post has virtually no original content nor commentary. The above is often not even someone summarizing an article, it is copying entire articles.

[Poker Player]

Just my two sats and waiting for the best result of Mpamaegbu.

I am one of those people who like to shake the nerves of others, so if Mpamaegbu successfully appeals against the ban and is unbanned, I will provide new evidence since I have something in store. I am such an obnoxious brute only on weekends, on other days I enjoy watching such scandals drinking Piña colada.

Hey man. On the one hand I thank you for the work you do against plagiarists, but on the other hand I think you should expose all the evidence you have now. I think it would be the most honest thing to do and would save the forum the most work.

[Poker Player]

Does something surprise you? This is an ordinary useless forum troll who sits with an alt account. He is scared to present his main account due to his cowardly nature. Most of his words can be safely divided by zero, since they have no basis whatsoever.

I didn't know him and I've just recently seen the feedback you left him (neutral btw, was that negative changed to neutral?).

I would advise these 2 users to just go through the history of their posts, and find all possible omissions themselves, so as not to continue to feed the troll.

In this I do not agree with you at all. You are basically telling two criminals to hide the evidence of the crime, so to speak. If they have plagiarized repeatedly they don't have to delete the evidence, what they have to be is banned from the forum, which has already happened in at least one case, and never come back, as the rules say.

Another thing is that he might be a troll, but he is a troll who discovers plagiarists.

[PrimeNumber7]

On the one hand I thank you for the work you do against plagiarists, but on the other hand I think you should expose all the evidence you have now. I think it would be the most honest thing to do and would save the forum the most work.

Does something surprise you? This is an ordinary useless forum troll who sits with an alt account. He is scared to present his main account due to his cowardly nature. Most of his words can be safely divided by zero, since they have no basis whatsoever.

I would point out that people can (and do) report plagiarism anonymously via the report to moderator button.

I am not sure I agree with your stance, but I think he likely is hoping to get merit from his public reports. 

He saw someone succeed by getting into one of the most paid campaigns, and immediately ran to look for violations from them in order to harm them as much as possible. I would not be surprised if after Dave F got into ChipMixer, then this troll ran immediately to look for plagiarism from him.

I can only speculate if what you are saying is true, and it may be true. However, there are some people who look for plagiarism by people that disagree with them, and/or that are critical of them.

Plagiarism had gone unnoticed and unhandled for such a long time that some people have weaponized it.

[icopress]

If you correct plagiarism after detection, but before processing the report, you are no longer a plagiarist, the forum will not punish you. [...]

My 2 cents ... At first I also thought it was a loophole, but it turned out to be not entirely true. ^{[Editing it after being caught doesn't absolve them (c)]}. I mean that global mods definitely use archives, although preference is given to global archival services and not to those archives that were created by someone from the forum participants, (although I can't talk about the preferences of all global mods).

[Poker Player]

In this I do not agree with you at all. You are basically telling two criminals to hide the evidence of the crime, so to speak.

It is rather inappropriate to compare plagiarists with criminals. Let's put them in jail.

That's why I said "so to speak", lol.

What's your vision? Stop the spread of plagiarism by removing it and correcting the user who made a mistake so that he understands that it is not worth doing this, or in any case, make sure that he is banned forever, despite the fact that he is ready to correct himself and continue to be a part of the forum? I choose the first option.

My vision is that if it is a minor case, which happened only once, I could accept that person being given a second chance. But if it happened repeatedly, 3, 5, 10 times or more, I prefer to ban him and never come back. There are a majority of us who do not cheat.

But it's not so much my view as Sir Theymos', I understand he doesn't tolerate plagiarism very much, although he lets the odd mild case pass.

[decodx]

From what I can tell, there is a lot of gray area here. Some plagiarists get a pass (well, he forgot to add the source, it was his first offense, he contributed so much to the community...), while others get an instant perma-ban and that's it. Where is the line? There must be a line somewhere. There must be defined rules that everyone must follow. I'm not referring to a super-censored version of this community, I just think the same rules should be applied, regardless of who is posting.

[nutildah]

... people don't plagiarize by mistake, it is always intentional.

...
What do you think? Is plagiarism always intentional or can there be some specific cases in which it is not? It is not clear to me.

Extraordinarily unlikely to ever be "unintentional" -- the quote above pretty much sums it up.

The reason has to do something with filling up the universe with monkeys and giving them typewriters... One of them is more likely to bang out a bitcoin private key on accident than a paragraph from Shakespeare... or something.

Also, Occam's Razor dictates that people are just lazy AF.


How hard is it to come up with original thought exactly anyway? Pretty dang hard, apparently.

[PrimeNumber7]

However, there are some people who look for plagiarism by people that disagree with them, and/or that are critical of them.

Of course there is, I admit it. But these are ideological people, it does not matter for them who to look for plagiarism, they are against any plagiarism. And this troll is looking for plagiarism only from the participants of some kind of signature campaigns. That makes all the difference.

I am not sure I agree with your conclusions.

Those that look for plagiarism by people who disagree with the person are not against "any" plagiarism, they are aginst people who think differently, and who criticize them.

I would also point out that in the past, DarkStar_ has offered bounties for people who are able to find substantial rule-breaking that results in a participant being removed from his campaign. So there is a financial incentive for people to look for things such as plagiarism, alt accounts, and other frowned upon behavior by those in the CM campaign.

[Rikafip]

I think Mpamaegbu likely intentionally plagiarized his post. The post in question is several years old, and I am not sure if he was participating in a signature campaign at the time. IMO he is sufficiently established of a forum member that a temp ban, rather than a permaban would probably be in order.

If his intention was to plagiarize, he wouldn't indicate that he took content from someplace else by writing "smuggled out snippet below" right there in the first sentence of that incriminating post.

 

There are a lot of people who basically copy entire articles in a thread and have a citation at the bottom of the post. This is not plagiarism, but IMO is another problem as the post has virtually no original content nor commentary. The above is often not even someone summarizing an article, it is copying entire articles.

If not formatted properly that's plagiarism too (not on bitcointalk though) and low value shitpost that should be reported & deleted.
 

[nutildah]

From what I can tell, there is a lot of gray area here. Some plagiarists get a pass (well, he forgot to add the source, it was his first offense, he contributed so much to the community...), while others get an instant perma-ban and that's it. Where is the line? There must be a line somewhere. There must be defined rules that everyone must follow. I'm not referring to a super-censored version of this community, I just think the same rules should be applied, regardless of who is posting.

Seeing as how the rules of Bitcointalk aren't "official" to begin with, I don't think the mods want to be held down to absolutes and have freedom to weigh certain factors before making a decision (did this person contribute to the forum, are they likely to keep breaking rules, and how severe was the 'crime', among others).

In general, people just shouldn't be copying the words of others and presenting them as their own. Shouldn't be too hard to not do, one would hope...

So there is a financial incentive for people to look for things such as plagiarism, alt accounts, and other frowned upon behavior by those in the CM campaign.

Are you sure that's a real thing? I've never heard anybody say anything about that.

[Pmalek]

So there is a financial incentive for people to look for things such as plagiarism, alt accounts, and other frowned upon behavior by those in the CM campaign.

Are you sure that's a real thing? I've never heard anybody say anything about that.

I am sure no one gets paid to do that. The only service similar to that is the Bounty Police by Royse777. But maybe there is an unofficial bounty you can get from campaign managers if you contact them in private and propose you find rule-breakers if they pay you a bounty for your work. Who knows.

Maybe when PrimeNumber7 said that there is "financial incentive to look for plagiarism", he meant there is the possibility for someone to take the place of a user who has plagiarized in a well-paying campaign. For example, I am someone who wants to get into a campaign but the campaign is full. I perform some research to see if there are examples of plagiarism with some of its members. I find one fall guy, I report a few of his posts, and he gets banned. The campaign then opens for new participants, so I apply and maybe get accepted. It's a long shot, but still.

[PrimeNumber7]

I think Mpamaegbu likely intentionally plagiarized his post. The post in question is several years old, and I am not sure if he was participating in a signature campaign at the time. IMO he is sufficiently established of a forum member that a temp ban, rather than a permaban would probably be in order.

If his intention was to plagiarize, he wouldn't indicate that he took content from someplace else by writing "smuggled out snippet below" right there in the first sentence of that incriminating post.

Okay, that is not something I had substantially noticed before. I have negative opinions regarding copying content (even when citing said content), as I discuss below, however, I don't think this substantiates any kind of long-term ban, nor long-term signature ban.

There are a lot of people who basically copy entire articles in a thread and have a citation at the bottom of the post. This is not plagiarism, but IMO is another problem as the post has virtually no original content nor commentary. The above is often not even someone summarizing an article, it is copying entire articles.

If not formatted properly that's plagiarism too (not on bitcointalk though) and low value shitpost that should be reported & deleted.

My opinion is that this kind of content is low value in nature. I wish people would not do this. However, as long as forum rules (and practice) allow this, I cannot in good faith favor a ban for doing this.