Seems like quite a special case, since you edited out the old plagiarists posts did you mention they weren't yours and that you had hired a ghost writer in them? A lot of my own votes for instance I cast just glancing at content because I trust the author and this is a way that trust can go downhill if they aren't even writing their own content but creating a middleman like service where they post content they've paid for with possible profit and I don't personally support it, whether or not they mention it was ghostwritten. We've had this happen in the past with a curator in OCD who did something similar and that ghostwriter also turned out to have been plagiarising but there she also didn't notify us that the content she was posting wasn't created by her so we had to remove her from her role.
I don't disagree that some of HW's actions are brutal and I hope they change that as an increasing amount of people are against it but this doesn't seem to be the usual case of accidental plagiarising but with another layer of ghostwriting. I'd like to know if you made an effort to let people know that or if you thought this was an acceptable way to accept post rewards on content you hadn't written yourself.
Thanks for your response. I also think your response highlights the issues that are here on hive. You mentioned that you only casually glance at the content. And you vote because you trust the person.
So what you're saying then is you are voting for a person, and not for their content. This is, in a way, a form of nepotism, which is bad.
I don't think ghost writing is bad or an issue. People come and they vote for your content. If the content is good, they vote for it. If they're voting for it purely on the aspect that is made by you, this creates a negative cycle, and is The Little Death for hive. People should vote for Content because they like that content.
Further if I pay someone to write an article for me. That person has been compensated to level their satisfied with and, depending on my agreement with them, they have given up rights to ownership of that content. I post that content which is now officially and legally mine, I should be allowed to earn off that. A person comes along and reads that content and likes it, they're voting for the content regardless of the author of that content.
Same thing goes with stock photo sites. If I pay for a subscription to a stock photo site, I have the legal binding rights to use those photos in my content. Yes if someone says did you take this picture, you respond no. But I don't have to cite the source of it because, you're paying for the rights not to do that. And no that is not plagiarism or stealing. The original photography is getting compensated, you are getting a product to use, and the person reading your content is having more enjoyability from it based on it. It's a win win. Yes you do get into a gray area, if the post is only pictures with no content or description, and I do believe those cases are different, as it's not unique content.
In summary. If people vote on people's content just because it is a specific author, and not on merits of the content. This is a negative thing more so than if a ghost writer writes content.
So to address your original question. No I didn't mention it was a ghostwriter.
I guess though in the future I can add a disclaimer to the bottom every post I do just a boiler plate that states...
.....
This post in part or fully may or may not have been written by a Ghostwriter, AI, or a third party. Likewise, images and pictures that appear in this post may or may not have been taken by me and edited in third-party applications such as canva or Adobe Lightroom and have had effects applied to them that I may or may not have had any hand in making or designing. Further links may or may not go to affiliate products, I may or may not have been used spell checking applications to change words.
So by the logic of disclosion everything listed, if I, or any one included that disclaimer in the footer of all there posts they would be okay.
:/
Absurd.
No it wouldn't be okay, and by glancing at content on authors I trust I'm emphasizing the importance of them keeping their account and content to themselves rather than doing this middleman bs you seem to deem okay to profit off of. Notes mentioning the content wasn't written by you but by someone you paid would for sure make me not want to reward the account because it's not always about content but about investing stake in users in my eyes and many others.
It's obviously both but content in and of itself isn't that special as you proved by paying someone to create it for you.
Either way, seems you have a different view of Hive and curation so not going to waste more time here.
Perhaps an experiment for you then.
Make a new account.
Post your content on the new account under a pen name. See how many people vote for your content based solely on its Merit verse people voting up your content because you have a large delegation of hive to you and they are sucking up to you to get votes.
Right now you get juicy up votes from people, based solely, or in majority, on your hive power in the community, with little to no regard to what the content actually is. ( for real post some Half Baked idea on your main account and see how much you earn from that).
Your argument states that, voting for a person is a better system /vs/ rewarding content based on it's quality, or the enjoyment level that content brings to you.
Then yes we both do have different views on what will make hive thrive.
Just voting for a person, gives that person and inflated sense of ego and worth, and in the majority of time will drive the quality of the content down and not up. It does not drive better content and innovation.
Lastly just because I have a disagreeing, or descending idea from you, that is different but also holds Merit, you were turning off this conversation and don't want to explore any further. Hence another thing wrong with having a lot of power. Makes you have the idea you're the only right answer. I mean check out your largest delegator. I looked on them on GitHub and I reached out to them on twitter. No response. That account delegated to you back on steem, and since then has been quiet. Where is the checks and balances on all this?
I think you're confusing autovotes with people voting based on my hp, pretty sure the latter isn't that much of a reason as to why people vote and I don't use my hp to trade votes to maximize my post rewards, others may be doing so, dunno I'm not a fan of it and have countered vote-trading in the past. Newcomers on Hive do rather well if they put their mind to it and become active, not sure what your point is there as I run initiatives myself to make sure that's the case and to bring diverse content and authors to trending every now and then. Either way I'm not going to go through all aspects of voting with an account that should know better by now.
I'm wanting to leave this conversation based on the fact that you think making it a profitable business model to have people write your content should be acceptable on Hive. I'm wanting to leave this conversation cause I thought you wouldn't be that stupid to risk your reputation on low effort profiting from other people's work. If you paid for it or not doesn't matter, you're defrauding certain curators who aren't aware that you're just copy-pasting content someone else wrote for you and it sure is giving me regret for having curated you in the past.
About your last point, dunno, hope he shows some signs of life soon cause it's been a while, but I sure as hell won't go the route to abuse his delegation to reward myself with low effort tactics like many seem to eventually do.
You have a sizeable amount of HP yourself yet no one seems to consume your content or "try to suck up to you", even if it's your own this time around who knows how much has been rewarded before you were found out that you were ghostwriting and that the ghostwriter plagiarised. Thanks for letting me know what the case was and your mindset about it.