How many times on the platform have we seen, or do we see plagiarism going on??

Quite a lot right?? Many get angry about it when we see it, because many of us believe that it is work that is stolen from someone else. So we could say that the person who plagiarises, wants to profit at the expense of others.

But what if all plagiarists are not the same?

What then? What if some of these people on the platform, who are stealing work do not know any better. What if they have never blogged before an believe that what they are doing is ok, that they are sharing information and being rewarded for it?

What if these people who comment "nice post, follow me" who we shout spammer at, don't have any clue about how to correctly curate?

What if these people have no idea how to write a quality post, and worse still they have no idea what so ever where to seek help? They know nothing about discord, or about communities or the help and support they can get? What if everyone is not in the same boat?

Who's job is it to inform these people? Steemcleaners, Whales, Dolphins?

(Credit Pixabay)

The curious tale of @youngboss

Time to time I check in on steemcleaners discord, I am naturally nosey and like to see what is going on in many communities. So I found myself wandering into the abuse room, where you can go to get the link to report plagiarism.

I happened to see a conversation from someone called @youngboss, who had been flagged for plagiarism. Now I confess readers that when ever I saw plagiarism happen, the first instinct I got angry like you and reported them. To me its the right thing to do it still is, we need to keep content original and good, to make it appealing to people to join and contribute on the platform.

I watched the conversation unfold between youngboss and the steemcleaners, he had published a football article, but had directly copied it from a sports website. Youngboss was informed why the post was flagged, and when he was asked to correct it he had no idea what he needed to do.

He genuinely thought what he had done was ok.

Youngboss had no idea about citing sources, or quoting information. He just though he could publish content and get rewarded and that is what he was doing. So I went on to his page and saw that the previous half a dozen or so posts had been flagged.

The light bulb moment, was that even though he was being flagged he still persisted. Because he did not know any better but to continue on the path he had taken. So I stepped up and offered my help to him.

So we got chatting

Together we looked at the plagiarised article and I explained why it was not cool to copy someone else's work and put it off as your own work. And then we started working on the article, I asked him to imagine he was the reporter at the football match, how would he explain it in his own words.

So he came back to me with new paragraphs and sentences, and I helped him understand than changing a few words in sentences would not work it had to be his own creation. He went away and worked for a little while and came back with new fresh content.

Then we looked at the photo's he had used, and I explained why we needed to reference the photo's and why it was important. So we looked at markdown and how markdown is useful. I explained what he needed to do and showed him, when I checked if he understood he wasn't. So we stopped the convo and I went onto DLive and created this post.

Beat the @steemcleaners and write and source like a pro.

I explained in the video what the user could do, and how markdown was a great tool to use in posts. I explained then when researching an article how to take pieces of information and turn them into your own words.

So I set youngboss a task.

(Credit Pixabay)

I said that if he watched the video and create his own unique post, including photos with the correct sources.I would upvote and resteem the post. He accepted the challenge and went straight to work.

A little later he returned and sent me the entire post on discord before he published it, so I could check it over. A few little tweaks and he published it, and ok its not a polished post but it was his own content and he really worked hard at it. Here is the article, please show your support to him for trying.

write and source like a pro. Beat the @steemcleaner

Credit @youngboss

Young boss was becoming a content creator

He has an eagerness and willingness to learn, he listens, learns asks questions when he does not understand.

The following day I had a chat with @guiltyparties from the steemcleaners, we chatted about what young boss was doing, and they were very happy to see his progress on the platform. I agreed to continue to help mentor him until he felt comfortable on his own without my help.

So there is one example but how many more are out there like that?

How many more people on the platform are uneducated, that they don't know the fundamental principles of writing good content on the platform, that they have never hear of things like markdown and plagiarism. Of course I am not blind to the fact that some people are clever and try to manipulate the system, of course you are always going to get people like that.

But maybe...maybe rather than shout and shame them that they are plagiarists and spammers that we try to contact them and show them what they need to be doing might actually help kick start the platform back into action.

There is a vicious circle happening folks and we can stop it.

People join steemit with no knowledge of blogging, people plagiarise, we name and shame them and they leave, then it starts over again.

When will it stop??

The only way we can stop this from happening is if we decide to do something about it, I cannot say anything right now but the tables are turning, people are tired of it and a group of us want to do something about it, watch this space.

Steemit is an experiment lets not forget that, it is still in beta right now, but lets face it with the amount of things bandering around any professional blogger seeing this right now would laugh and move on. Unless we take accountability for our actions on the platform and not leave it to a small handful of people, we will not see improvements.

So I have made a decision.

(Credit Pixabay)

I have decided that I will dedicate time to offer mentorship to those people that want to learn and grow on the platform, I will step up to the mark and be that person to help and watch people grow. It is clear that no matter how many times we post, after 7 days it is lost in the chain and new content takes over, if we have to take matters into our own hands then I will do that.

@youngboss is a shining example of what was and what could be, I honestly believe there are many others who share the same fate and with that little bit of help and encouragement instead of whales and dolphins flagging them off the planet, with little explanation and help we might actually get somewhere on this platform.

@enchantedspirit commented on one of my posts with this quote from Steve Jobs.

source

And with that readers every post will now not be signed off thanks for reading.

It will be this.

Changing the world one day at a time

xoxo

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