## Suggested universal rules - how to react for the plagiarism and abuse

https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmRAY7S67hXn6yYHhGvT9RVYR8zf2bM1PXdrZdzSWEN146/phishing-gd67e3c378_1920.jpg _source

The rules are quite liberal and clear. Our task is to educate first, punish by downvotes or blocking only when it's absolutely necessary. That's why we suggest following reaction for inappropriate behavior: --- --- Behavior | Reaction --- | --- Auto-plagiarism from other websites | If it's autoplagiarism from the other websites (Hive user or blogger, sharing same content on Steemit), it's fine as long as post does not include #steemexclusive tag. Of course, that person is excluded from SC01/02 and booming support for that publication, but sharing it on the platform is not against the rules, per se. If #steemexclusive tag was used, inform the person about the mistake in a comment, and explain what does #steemexclusive mean Auto-plagiarism on Steemit | Some users are sharing their few months old publications as the "new content", not changing much, if anything in it. At first, make an investigation to see if it happened only once or if it's a standard procedure for that person. Using the same photos, as long as they belong to the user or are on a Creative Commons license, is fine, but copying more than 35% of the text and publishing it as the new post should be treated like a regular plagiarism. Copyrighted photos | It's the most popular mistake made by the Steemians. Many users has never heard about the creative commons license and they do not realize that taking random pictures from the internet is stealing from the author. Here, education is crucial. Explain what Creative Commons are and where the user can find proper pictures. You can use THAT PUBLICATION to do it. The author who used wrong photos does not have to be muted or marked in a system, but should not receive the booming support or SC01/02 upvote as long as the post contain copyrighted content. CC photos without the source/with wrong source | It's a small mistake, that should not be considered as the abuse but require our reaction. Sometimes the publication does not contain sources at all or include the source that redirect us to google searcher or any other wrong website. The very common mistakes include also assuming that every element of Canva or other similar programs are for free and using the paid elements with the watermarks. In that case, ask in the comment for fixing the mistake. To explain how to do it, you can use THAT POST, chapter "how to link photos". The publication should not get booming or SC01/02 upvote until the mistakes are corrected by the author. Plagiarism up to 35% | Partially plagiarized content can be treated as skipping the source in quoting and, if it is not happening constantly, does not require marking the author as the plagiarist. In that case, first thing you should do is to check the previous publications of that person to make sure their posts are not plagiarized on a daily basis. If only the small part of the post is plagiarized, educate Steemian about citing and quoting importance. To do it, you can use THAT LINK. The publication with partially plagiarized content should not be qualified for booming or SC01/02 support Plagiarism over 35% | In case of plagiarized content in more than 35%, you should take actions. As the admin, mute the post to make it invisible for other users and avoid further upvoting, then downvote all the rewards (if any of your friends upvoted it, you can ask them to cancel the upvote - that way you will need less SP to make the downvote), and edit the label of the user (details in one of the next chapters of that publication). Finally - write in a comment under the last report in our community the nickname of the abuser, date and send the link to the muted plagiarized content. Spam | If you see the spamming account that is advertising the products or services in your community (both: in posts or comments), mute it immediately and block it in your community then send the link to the account to us, sharing it in the comment under the last report in Anti-Cheat Cheetah. Indentity Theft | Luckily that sort of serious abuse is rare, but it happens. My identity was stolen on Steemit too - the abuser was trying to steal the money from the others, using my nickname (slightly changed) and photos. Contact with the original author, if possible, then contact us immediately. Account farmers | Finding the account farmers is very challenging and require long investigation. Things that may suggest account farm include: sending the money to the same binance address (or other market/wallet), mutual upvoting, similar style of writing, same mistakes, same photos used etc. If you suspect that you have found the content farm, white a post about it in our community. We will try to double check it (possibly by more than one user) to make sure it's the abuse and if it is, we will take the proper actions. Inappropriate comments | If it's just a vulgar or discriminative comments, it's your decision what to do with them - as the admin you can mute them, downvote, block the user or not react at all. You need to react when you suspect that the password of the user was compromised and that someone is using it to share the spam by sending suspicious links or asking for sending the money to them. First, hide that comments, then inform the account that besides the owner, most likely someone else is using their profile, finally send the information to us. --- --- --- ## How to find the abusers?
I assume all the moderators and admins already know how to look for the plagiarized content, but if someone does have any doubts, here is a very short tutorial: Checked element | How to review? --- | --- Photos | At first, check the source to see where it will redirect you. Find on that website the information about the license of the picture. If it's copyrighted, it should not be used on Steemit, if it's CC - everything is fine. In case when someone is sharing the photos describing them as their own, you should still take a look at it. I even had the situation when someone participated in the contest sharing "my own pictures from the vacations" that happened to be taken from... The National Geographic! You may scan the photos using different tools, for instance Google Lens. Google Lens can be used on Google Chrome, after right-click on the photo and selecting "Search with Google Lens" from the list. You may also install their application on the phone. Text | There are tens of the programs and websites that offer checking the text to find the plagiarism. In my opinion, the best free tool is on the website Plagiarism Detector. It's not perfect, but from all the free options, that one is most accurate. Best paid programs include Scribbr and Quetext - the first of them is quite expensive though. Account | Like I mentioned before, making sure that accounts are made by the same author is challenging but possible. Check the history of transactions to see if they all are withdrawing the money using the same account, then track their upvotes, investigate the posts to see if they use the same photos, have the same writing style, make similar mistakes. Many account farmers are sharing the trash (one photo, or a few of sentences) just to upvote each others - it's also something that should bring your attention --- --- ## Marking plagiarists
In case of identity theft, spammers and content farmers, blocking them from the community should be made immediately, as they clearly are here just to steal the money. If someone is sharing for the first time the publication with over 35% of the plagiarized content, we should try to give a chance to the user to change their behavior first. To do so, we should introduce the warning system that will effect in adding the their label special marker. Marker should be added in all the communities that want to participate in the program, so even if the plagiarism will move from one community to the other, admins will know that their posts require special attention while being checked. Same thing with the constant abusers - plagiarist caught on their third attempt to cheat should be blocked not only in the community where the plagiarism was shared but in all the communities that follow our account. Label | Situation --- | --- (W1) | Warning 1 - First attempt to share the content with over 35% of the plagiarism on Steemit + hiding and downvoting all the rewards from the post (W2) | Warning 2 - Second attempt to share the content with over 35% of the plagiarism on Steemit + hiding and downvoting all the rewards from the post Blocked | With the third attempt the user should be blocked in all the communities and excluded t + hiding and downvoting all the rewards from all the active post written by that person --- --- --- --- ## How to join the downvote curation trail?
You don't have to be the admin of the community to help us fighting with the abuse - just join our trail. The more users will join @ac-cheetah downvote trail, the more power we will have to downvote the abusers. Downvoting is taking VP from the separate pool so it won't affect your ability to upvote the content that you like. You do not loose anything joining the trail and you may easily contribute in helping to make the platform much better and much more fair place just with a few clicks. --- --- _{PS: Our work will be made manually for now, although we are in touch with the user @alexmove who is preparing the tool that may automatize it, at least partially.
100 % of the income from this account will be powered up and used to downvote abusers.}