Copy/Paste: Friends With Controls (C + V)

in #utopian-io6 years ago (edited)

With technology advancement, information is within easy reach. The world wide web is rich of content, easy to find through different search engines.

Copy/Paste is a great combination don't you think? Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V are my friends when I'm researching, making notes or writing technical paper.

Very helpful, very efficient. But on the blockchain, when irresponsibly done, is detrimental.

Points To Cover

  • What is copy/paste abuse on the blockchain
  • How to find copy/paste without following Cheetah

What Is This Abuse? Part 2

For my second anti-abuse contribution, I'm tackling one of the laziest type of abuse - Copy/Paste.

Copy/Paste is one step closer to plagiarism. It is copied content with attribution to the source. And when you read the post, it has zero to very little original content.


I said lazy work. Copy someone's blog, paste it on an editor, type in the source and post. Now it's on the blockchain adding zero value. It adds to the junk already there.

Let's see how else copy/paste is defined.

From Utopian antiabuse guidelines

Copy/paste - Copying material from any source that is not their original work with attribution to original creator without additional original content added

From Steem Cleaners

Copy & Paste – Posts include source and no original content

I'm not that far off on my definition. That's good, that means we're on the same page. If you define it otherwise, what would you call it?

How To Detect Copy/Paste

This is a simple example of how I find this type of abuse.

When you keep sniffing the blockchain, you'll get a good feel of where to start looking.

Troll the New section, ignore Trending

Scroll through the new post submissions. We're looking for some generic information one can easily grab from the web.

Remember, it's lazy work. Think about what a lazy person would do for easy rewards. What tags or niche are the most popular?
image.png

Look at that screenshot for a moment. [long pause here, examines the screenshot]

I have a gut feeling about the first and last post. After fighting abuse, you might get gut feelings too.

The Korean review I'll skip for obvious reasons. I'll also skip the "Sunny day" post since I'm not looking for image plagiarism.

Check the tags and dig in

Note what tags were used on the first and last posts? Yes, "crypto" and "cryptocurrency". Let's check these posts one at a time, starting with the Daily market report.

image.png

Uh oh, I think I've seen this chart before. It looks familiar.

Scrolling down at the bottom of the post, here we see:

image.png

Bingo! Go to CoinMarketCap.com and check this data. The post is now 32 minutes old with no rewards.

image.png

Sure enough, the post is matching the format of CoinMarketCap's homepage, only showing the first four columns.

The only reason to do this is because you're lazy. You think no one cares. The Steem blockchain is just there for you to take what you want. -- WRONG

This is a classic example of copy/paste. No original content written by the account. One can go to the Coinmarketcap website directly for this information.

Check Steemit Account History

Looking deeper into the previous posts of this account, we can see multiple instances of copy/paste posts.

image.png

An hour passed, the post we're investigating is now at $2.58.

Let's report this to Steem Cleaners.

  • Fill out your Steemit account name or write steemcleaners for anonymity
  • Post URL will be the copy/paste post's link
  • Details - Copied data from coinmarketcap, no other original content
  • Supporting link - coinmarketcap.com
  • Abuse Type - Copy/Paste
  • Click Report Abuse


copypaste.gif

Let's do the same thing for that first post I was eyeing.

Let's open that link and see the post.

image.png

Oh boy, only a screen shot from somewhere. There are only 3 sentences.

Notice the number of upvotes. I'll check that later. This smells like vote farming.

Looking at all the posts, it's another oh boy. This is flag-able and reportable.

image.png

This is not copy/paste. More like spam and vote farming.

Tagging @pjau, @patrice, @guiltyparties. I found another vote farm.

Scouting for abuse on the New page gave us 2 easy leads.

Do they add any value to you?

Summary

Thanks for abuse hunting with me. I hope you try this simple technique of finding abuse. The blockchain is full of them and you'll never run out of things to report to Steem Cleaners.

Copy/paste is a good tool in general. But in the wrong hands, it is a nuisance to those who create original content.

Resources

Cheetah bot explained
-- This is a good read on why plagiarism and copy/paste types of abuse are bad for the platform.
Copy/pasting on Steemit
-- This is a 2-yr old post. It's the account's first post and has a negative concept of Steemit due to abuse.

Previous Series

If you missed the first part of this series, check it out below:

Next on "What is This Abuse" Series

  • Plagiarism: Your Hard Work, My Gain
  • Scam: Your Identity and Funds Aren't Safe
Sort:  

Thank you for your contribution to the antiabuse initiative.

Copy/Paste is one of the most important abuse categories as here everyone can learn that it is about originality and not giving a source. That there are different kinds of Copy/Paste is well shown by you.

I liked that you took two examples pointing out the definitions of Copy/Paste. A good example could also be the standard Copy/Paste post with written text and a source like this one but yours are fine as well.

There is one minor mistake in your post:
When explaining how to submit the report to steemcleaners you say to either insert your account name or leave it blanc. This was like this on the old website, currently you should 'steemcleaners' if you want to report anonymously.


Your contribution has been evaluated according to Utopian policies and guidelines, as well as a predefined set of questions pertaining to the category.

To view those questions and the relevant answers related to your post, click here.


Need help? Write a ticket on https://support.utopian.io/.
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[utopian-moderator]

Thanks Naturicia! It's fixed now.

I imagined it was going to be difficult to find an example while I was writing the post. Those 2 caught my eye and they were both good find.

It is sad that it's that easy to find abuse when you look. I'm sure you share the same sentiment.

Great catches, indeed.
For the next post about plagiarism you can go and look into the steemcleaners reports (as I did here). You didn't find it then but can be a good additional example if you didn't find what you exactly want.

Thank you for your review, @naturicia! Keep up the good work!

Going by the instinct and catching up with the copy paster. Simply great contribution....appreciated

Posted using Partiko Android

That's right. But sadly, I think we are too late finding these 2 accounts. They have been doing this for a long time. Which will encourage the new Steemians who saw this that this type of content is ok -- when in reality, is NOT.

Thanks for coming by!

Wow!! Could you kindly discuss on image plagiarism. Thank you for the blog post.

I will be working on plagiarism next. Definitely a tough topic since the image plagiarism is getting more difficult to prove and track.

Hey thanks, I'll take a look next time I'm at the puta. Not opening accounts in 500+ tabs on mobile. Take 5 years. 😂

No, don't use mobile hahaha.

I got some eyes on it. I'll drop it at SC. See if I can find a way to extract voters quickly.

Nice Way For Copy/Paste

@sniper555, your comment seems a little spammy. This type of comment attracts downvotes from anti-abuse Steemians.

1. comment spam
I would advise that you read the post and comment thoughtfully. If English is not your first language, you can still comment on your native language and we'll just translate it.

I boxed the good comments you made recently. These were thoughtful comments to the posts. Keep it up. The thank you was appropriate too. The rest are generic and can be flagged if you're not careful.

sniper555comments.jpg

2. comment self-vote violation
You upvoted this post 7% and you upvoted your comment 100%. I can still look at this as self-vote violation because the 7% is actually a zero value vote. It takes away from the rewards. We also call it sniping.

You might be wasting that $0.02 upvote. If it doesn't meet the dust payout threshold you won't see that reward on 7th day.

Hi @lovenfreedom!

Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your post is eligible for our upvote, thanks to our collaboration with @utopian-io!
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server

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haha, this was a surprisingly fun read. Felt like I went on an adventure with you [ I can see it now: Bug Hunt, an all new original series coming soon to HBO ].

Thank you for cleaning up the chain. Obviously no issue with copy & pasting, but just burn your rewards. Don't accept them. If you're just gonna use Steem as a semi-archive tool [ even though there are better methods for that ], then at least don't take from the rewards pool.

Thanks again for doing your part! Looking forward to more of these posts. Have you done one talking about "vote-farms" yet? That's a subject I'm curious about but don't know much of...

Posted using Partiko Android