How to ruin a platform's reputation

Lately, I keep on running into two things: Plagiarism and copy/paste comments.

Samstonehill Steemit header

I'm spending more time flagging than upvoting lately. That's not really how I want to spend my time here, so I'm asking you all to pitch in. Squash these bugs while they're still small and set an example for future members.

The example

I ran into this post a little while ago:

Great, right? Then I saw Cheetah's comment:

Hmm, let's just check that out, shall we?

Wikihow:

Our plagiarist:

Ouch, doesn't look good for this guy. Time to flag and explain why...

Not too rude, right? I still have my kind moments...

Then, the argument ensued!

Wait, a friend? Wikihow? Just the images taken from the site huh? But... what about Cheetah's comment? What about my very own eyes being able to see the exact match from the texts?

I cannot make this any more clear, can I? I checked out his profile and surprise surprise, he re-posted the article again. It even had an upvote or two! A whole $0.01 pending! Not anymore though.

Sigh...

This guy has plenty of Cheetah comments on his posts and he is rude and daring enough to challenge a plagiarism claim, even though this particular one was very obvious.

I know Cheetah's comment doesn't always mean the post is plagiarised. I got my fair share of Cheetah comments when I started out with copying content from my Wordpress blog to Steemit. People also quote sources sometimes. However, if you see Cheetah's comment on any post, please just check out of it's plagiarised, before you upvote the content. If it's blatant plagiarising, either flag it yourself (with an explanation), or report to Steemcleaners through Steemit.chat.

At the very least, don't upvote the post.

How would you feel when someone stole your text/art and earned a couple of bucks (or even hundreds) from it?

Would you not feel betrayed? Would you not feel that you deserve (some of) those earnings?

Plagiarism gives Steemit a bad name, especially because we can actually earn from our content here. If you're very unlucky, I'm sure you could get into some serious trouble by stealing text, art or pictures from an online source. You're not allowed to just use anything you come across online, especially when you're using it to earn money (including crypto). Don't simply copy pictures from google or random websites either. Use your own or figure out if the picture you want to use is free to use for commercial purposes (and check if this is with or without mentioning the source).

What can you do to keep up Steemit's good name?

The simplest thing you can do is keep an eye on the comment section of a post. If you see Cheetah commenting there, follow its link and see if the posted content is the same as the content in Cheetah's link. If it is, check out if the Steemian mentioned the source in his/her article. Did he/she quote (part of) the source and mention it? No problem! Did he/she mention it was a copy from his/her own blog or site? No problem! However, is there no mention of the original source whatsoever? You should take action. You can report them to Steemcleaners in the Steemit.chat steemcleaners linkdrop channel. You can also flag the post yourself and write a comment on why you flagged them. Depending on how bad or minor the plagiarising is, you could even offer to remove the flag once they properly cite the source.

Please help keep the platform free of this kind of abuse. It takes all of us to keep a watchful eye. Don't be afraid to use your flag. If you are afraid of retaliation, you can report to Steemcleaners instead, so you won't have to challenge anyone yourself.

Repeat offenders who have already been warned should always be reported to Steemcleaners, because they can simply do more than one person could.