PLAGIARISM - an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author.
CURATORS - a person who selects content for presentation, as on a website.
AGGREGATOR - Digital Technology. a Web-based or installed application that aggregates related, frequently updated content from various Internet Sources and consolidates it in one place for viewing.
Definitions above are from www.dictionary .com
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We continually see posts on Steemit that are copied word for word from other internet sources and curators who in-turn spend a lot of time performing Google searches trying to identify these plagiarized items.
I think the reality is that there is absolutely no way to keep this type of content off of Steemit. The solution would be to allow it in a format that would be acceptable to the four parties involved: The original source of the article or news, the poster on Steemit, the Curator, and the reader.
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Steemit seems to need a mechanism like other aggregator sites provide that simply allows you to paste a link, and lets you type an introduction or synopsis of an article or news story. I'm sure this method wouldn't be new to Steemit devs and it's probably something they may already be working on. This has several immediate benefits:
- Immediately gives credit (and click-throughs) to the original source of the article by providing a link to it
- Satisfies the Steemit posters urge to let our community know about important news or articles
- Allows Curators to vote on the relevancy of the news story or article without having to vote on the Steemit posters intentions or having to accuse them of plagiarizing material.
- It keeps the original poster from having to re-type an entire news story or article manually since an excerpt of the original would automatically be placed in the post.
When clicking on the "Submit a Story" link it would be ideal to be prompted if you would be providing a linked article or original content.
Linked articles would be instantly identifiable as such when a reader or curator sees them. And then they can vote on the relevancy of the content rather than on the posters intentions.
Original content could then be voted on its originality, writing style, art, or whatever contribution it is making to the Steemit community.
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For the linked stories Steemit would simply be serving as an aggregator similar to reddit.com, huffingtonpost.com etc.,
On the other hand it would also be serving as a rich source of original content.
I think Steemit can wear both hats extremely well, if the devs implement the proper code in future versions of the site.
My personal opinion is that I enjoy the occasional article that I may have missed on another site.
One lingering question might be should aggregator links receive the same compensation as original posts? If they don't then it would probably lead us back to the plagiarism, since people would try to select the original content option and go back to re-typing an entire article and not giving credit.