What happened to the forum plagiarism rules?

[lovesmayfamilis]

Dear moderators, can I ask you what the latest plagiarism rules are?
I have reported several cases of plagiarism, but no action has been taken on them so far.
Yes, I see that you began to give temporary bans to beginners (if I'm not mistaken). Then let's make it known to everyone that if you are a newbie, you have the right to copy anything you want.
In addition, the forum strives to provide unique content, so why aren't cases of plagiarism even removed?
And another question, how many times can newbies have cases of copying so that punishment will apply to it?

Plagiarism
User: Zain Tariq
Post link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5387404.msg59419862#msg59419862
(archive)

Plagiarism
User: Rich222
Post link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5388161.msg59414223#msg59414223
(archive)

Plagiarism
User: Jontokhan65
Post link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5387465.msg59370672#msg59370672
(archive)

Plagiarism paraphrasing
User: BenjaminGlover
Post link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5385951.msg59268150#msg59268150
(archive)

Plagiarism  paraphrasing
User: wtsimis
Post link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5381644.msg59003179#msg59003179
(archive)

Plagiarism  paraphrasing
User: HRIDOY4847
Post link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5387443.msg59379510#msg59379510
(archive)

Plagiarism
User: Hsibalimrn
Post link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5387726.msg59386947#msg59386947
(archive)

[Smartvirus]

Just my personal opinion, it's plagiarism. Two people may have the same thought but it is unlikely (nearly impossible) to describe the thought in the same exact words in one place. And from his post history, before voting he never wrote the word "1xbit", which means there is no supporting reason for the vote given (unless he has an implied reason).

Thanks, I think I'll send a report to his post. Let's see what the moderator decides.

I've gone through a few of these and on the count of the quite above, non of these guys as presented by Lovesmayfamilis, all these guys are defaulters and guilty of the plagiarism rule and as such, its only expected that the rule applies. I might seem to understand why the forum tries to handle these newbies or beilginners with some tenderness and give a temporal ban but I say this, it makes no difference from a permanent ban and I think the permanent ban is much more effective.

When these newbies arr given a permanent ban, it sends a direct message on how strict is the forums stands on this rule. With the rules being clearly stated in the pinned post, ignorance is not much of an excuse. Most of all, when these users gets a banned, they still go about creating alts of which, they are very much aware of what would become of there alt should they plagiarise. It only takes the foolish once to be follow the same part and not expect the same harhness.

Perhaps the moderators have there reasons for which, it could be let known to ensure clarity and so, those taking up this course to ensure the purification of the forum and that the rules are adhered to would be at peace that they aren't doing these things for nothing. Forum rules comes first and enforcing it is what would give the forum its integrity.

[Coyster]

I might seem to understand why the forum tries to handle these newbies or beilginners with some tenderness and give a temporal ban but I say this, it makes no difference from a permanent ban and I think the permanent ban is much more effective.

Correct me if i am wrong, i thought leniency as regards plagiarism more often than not applies to established users/users that have been here for quite a while and have contributed in one way or another, and thus if a misdemeanor they committed sometime past is found, then they could be given another chance, and if need be, maybe an addition of a signature ban or something of that sort.

Do newbies also get such chances? And is it on the basis that they are new and prolly didn't pay cognizance to the forum rules, especially that which has to do with "do not plagiarise"? I am unaware of temporary ban being given to newbies in cases of plagiarism, well if that is the case, i am pretty sure a mod will clear the air and the reason why.

[mk4]

We're in a bear market mate, even the moderators themselves have been shaken out of the markets/s

In all seriousness, I think I've been seeing plagiarism posts a lot more rarely recently compared to years ago, hence why I thought the moderators were actually far stricter now. Didn't know they increased their leniency.

[mindrust]

My guess is, the forum lost so much traffic they can't afford to ban people anymore. When this forum was having its golden years, they would ban you for committing plagiarism forever. As always, once you bend a rule a little bit, soon that rule is gone completely. This is what we are experiencing here probably. It is becoming worse every day.

[LoyceV]

Did you report the posts directly (using "Report to moderator"), or only post the plagiarism in my topic? In my experience, reporting the posts results in quicker action than just posting in the topic.

[Daniel91]

My guess is, the forum lost so much traffic they can't afford to ban people anymore. When this forum was having its golden years, they would ban you for committing plagiarism forever. As always, once you bend a rule a little bit, soon that rule is gone completely. This is what we are experiencing here probably. It is becoming worse every day.

You may be right, but only admins can answer that question.
After all, permaban lately has not been as “perma” as it was in the beginning.
As far as I remember, at first it was impossible to remove permaban and later exceptions from permaban were allowed, and at the end even removing permaban became almost common.
Perhaps we are now looking at a new phase of punishing members, where the first warning is given through a temporary ban, and no more through permaban?
This is a big change compared to the cases we had before on this forum, like the one from RegulusHr (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5097792.0), who had to wait two years for his permaban to be forgiven, with the overwhelming support of the local community.

[lovesmayfamilis]

Did you report the posts directly (using "Report to moderator"), or only post the plagiarism in my topic? In my experience, reporting the posts results in quicker action than just posting in the topic.

Yes, sure. When I report, I always press the button with sending to moderators. For me, it has always worked flawlessly. Therefore, I wonder what I'm doing wrong because I don't see the results.
This is very frustrating.

[Lucius]

Dear moderators, can I ask you what the latest plagiarism rules are?

I wonder the same, because I also reported some of the people you caught plagiarizing and the reports remained unhandled, and those same members continue to plagiarize and paraphrase. I have also noticed that a much larger number of reports have remained unhandled in the past 2-3 weeks, although they are quite clear and unambiguous, and it is not clear to me why they are being avoided.

[suchmoon]

This has been going for a year or two now. Very frustrating, especially for complex cases where it's not plain copy-pasta and you have to put a lot of effort into figuring out the origin of plagiarism that's been paraphrased / translated / paywalled / etc. Somehow some users are getting a pass even after multiple reports.

[Findingnemo]

If I am not wrong in the past if a newbie copy paste from an existing post or even if they are spamming they will be nuked but it depends on who handles the report since its not a public info we can wait for the mod who handled it to explain the reason of not giving permanent ban.

[UmerIdrees]

Did you report the posts directly (using "Report to moderator"), or only post the plagiarism in my topic? In my experience, reporting the posts results in quicker action than just posting in the topic.

Sometimes the moderators may have missed them as there are a number of reports to be handled each day. But I have one suggestion.
Why not every one of us hit the Report to moderator button of the actual cases presented in > Report plagiarism (copy/paste) here. Mods: please give temp or permban as needed. In this way, when there will be multiple reports being submitted for the plagiarist post, it is more likely to be taken noticed and not missed by the mods.

[mindrust]

My guess is, the forum lost so much traffic they can't afford to ban people anymore. When this forum was having its golden years, they would ban you for committing plagiarism forever. As always, once you bend a rule a little bit, soon that rule is gone completely. This is what we are experiencing here probably. It is becoming worse every day.

You may be right, but only admins can answer that question.
After all, permaban lately has not been as “perma” as it was in the beginning.
As far as I remember, at first it was impossible to remove permaban and later exceptions from permaban were allowed, and at the end even removing permaban became almost common.
Perhaps we are now looking at a new phase of punishing members, where the first warning is given through a temporary ban, and no more through permaban?
This is a big change compared to the cases we had before on this forum, like the one from RegulusHr (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5097792.0), who had to wait two years for his permaban to be forgiven, with the overwhelming support of the local community.

That's what I said.

Permanent Ban used to be permanent. Then it was semi-permanent, and now there isn't any kind of banning   Back then no matter how big you were in the forum, no matter how many green ratings you got, you would get clipped once you broke a rule. It is because the forum was filled with the quality posters and their posts.

Now there isn't even anything left to discuss, other than the price.

[BITCOIN4X]

lovesmayfamilis, I guess you just need to give the mod a little time to handle your reports as I think all the reports you quoted in the OP are not a month old. I don't know how many plagiarism reports the mod hasn't dealt with so far regardless if it's from you or other contributors since february to now, but giving the mod a little time is a great option in this case. It's okay to complain especially since you want to know what the problem is, but I'm sure the mods will sort it out sooner or later if the breach was really done on purpose when they start dealing with report after report you make.

A permanent ban is a consequence if a user commits plagiarism on purpose regardless of whether the mod wants to block it immediately or sometime after they handle the report. I think you just have to be patient with it for now because the rules are still in effect and nothing has changed.

[OgNasty]

My guess is, the forum lost so much traffic they can't afford to ban people anymore. When this forum was having its golden years, they would ban you for committing plagiarism forever. As always, once you bend a rule a little bit, soon that rule is gone completely. This is what we are experiencing here probably. It is becoming worse every day.

You may be right, but only admins can answer that question.
After all, permaban lately has not been as “perma” as it was in the beginning.
As far as I remember, at first it was impossible to remove permaban and later exceptions from permaban were allowed, and at the end even removing permaban became almost common.
Perhaps we are now looking at a new phase of punishing members, where the first warning is given through a temporary ban, and no more through permaban?
This is a big change compared to the cases we had before on this forum, like the one from RegulusHr (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5097792.0), who had to wait two years for his permaban to be forgiven, with the overwhelming support of the local community.

That's what I said.

Permanent Ban used to be permanent. Then it was semi-permanent, and now there isn't any kind of banning   Back then no matter how big you were in the forum, no matter how many green ratings you got, you would get clipped once you broke a rule. It is because the forum was filled with the quality posters and their posts.

Now there isn't even anything left to discuss, other than the price.

I think the administration probably didn’t want to waste any more time with ban appeals. I’m surprised to read that bans aren’t happening anymore. I’m sure it was a constant headache having to deal with people complaining about being banned. They can just get around it with a new account anyway, so it’s questionable how effective it is as a strategy. I’ve seen established members over the last few years directly disobey direct requests in the face of empty threats, so I think it’s probably the result of not wanting to deal with this stuff disguised as free speech.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Correct me if i am wrong, i thought leniency as regards plagiarism more often than not applies to established users/users that have been here for quite a while and have contributed in one way or another, and thus if a misdemeanor they committed sometime past is found, then they could be given another chance, and if need be, maybe an addition of a signature ban or something of that sort.

Do newbies also get such chances?

No, you're not wrong--that's how it's been for as long as I can remember, and I even recall a time when not even established members would be given a second chance.  If there's been any change as far as giving complete newbies who start off their bitcointalk "career" plagiarizing the content of others, it's news to me.  And that would be a huge step backward, IMO.

Is there any chance the mods might not have caught up to the reports on these cases, OP?  As far as I can tell, there haven't been any proclamations by Theymos and no word from the mods regarding any new policy toward leniency when it comes to plagiarism.  Rich222 was the subject of a thread I posted in yesterday, and normally a member who'd been publicly hung out to dry as a plagiarist would have been banned already, so I'm hoping he and the rest of these plagiarists get the ban-hammer soon.

I think the administration probably didn’t want to waste any more time with ban appeals. I’m surprised to read that bans aren’t happening anymore. I’m sure it was a constant headache having to deal with people complaining about being banned.

No doubt it's a headache, but mods pretty much always ignored ban appeals anyway, so what changed?

[Coyster]

If there's been any change as far as giving complete newbies who start off their bitcointalk "career" plagiarizing the content of others, it's news to me.  And that would be a huge step backward, IMO.

I second that, but honestly i doubt there is any of such change cause if there was, i think the forum would be updated on that, especially for users who take out their time to fish out such plagiarised contents, thus i am thinking maybe this is just a normal delay that can happen, maybe no mod has as of yet picked up the case, but it is something that's inevitable.

No doubt it's a headache, but mods pretty much always ignored ban appeals anyway, so what changed?

That's correct, and i can't imagine ban appeals being the issue here, i mean it is allowed on the forum, a user has the right to create another account to appeal their ban and can only post on that appeal topic with such account, so there is no way mods would prefer not to ban a user who plagiarised cause they can choose to appeal the ban, no chance in hell that is the problem here, if any even.

[logfiles]

So it took some bit of noise to get three of the culprits banned.

Zain Tariq - Banned!
Rich222 - Banned!
Jontokhan65 - Banned!
BenjaminGlover  -Not banned
wtsimis - Not banned
HRIDOY4847 - Not banned, perhaps due to wrong profile link
Hsibalimrn - Not banned

I don't know what criteria is being used here. Perhaps the paraphrasing chaps are being forgiven?
If I recall well, I think I used to see some text spinning guys getting banned too before.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I don't know what criteria is being used here. Perhaps the paraphrasing chaps are being forgiven?
If I recall well, I think I used to see some text spinning guys getting banned too before.

Thanks for updating that.

"Paraphrasing" was never forgiven before, and I do hope that there hasn't been some behind-the-scenes policy change with Theymos and the moderators as far as that goes, because paraphrasing someone else's content is basically text-spinning, even if you don't use a bot to do it--in other words, it's still plagiarism, plain and simple.

thus i am thinking maybe this is just a normal delay that can happen, maybe no mod has as of yet picked up the case, but it is something that's inevitable.

Yeah, I'm getting that feeling as well.  With all the terrible shit that's happening in the world, there is the chance that some of the mods are dealing with real-life issues and aren't spending as much of their time handling reports.  That's just speculation, but this is a global forum with mods from all over the place.

Kind of off-topic, but have any of our regular Russian or Ukrainian members been chiming in lately?  I know there are a lot of them, and I'd like to hear what they're going through.  Should I un-ignore Politics and Society? 

[UserU]

Why not every one of us hit the Report to moderator button of the actual cases presented in > Report plagiarism (copy/paste) here. Mods: please give temp or permban as needed. In this way, when there will be multiple reports being submitted for the plagiarist post, it is more likely to be taken noticed and not missed by the mods.

One guy's gonna get the [Good] report, while the rest that come later would be slapped with a [Bad].

Besides, too much redundant work for the mods when they see the same report made by at least 3 users.