Introducing !sources
After creating !pancakes and !popcorn, I have been looking at new ways to encourage fun on our favorite blockchain. Recently I was asked by a curator friend if I could build a bot to assist in preventing plagiarism.
The idea is simple, if a curator (or spam fighter, or anyone really) finds content that is plagiarized or improperly sourced, they simply can type !sources and a well written and formatted response to gently remind the author of proper sourcing of all non-public domain 0 (CC0) content.
How does it work?
The bot monitors the blockchain for comments that mention !sources and will respond immediately with the following comment.
But why?
Fighting plagiarism on Steem is a very delicate balance. On one hand, we don't want people stealing other people's content and more importantly get rewarded for it, on the other hand, we want to prevent losing our most important asset... users.
Curators and spam fights already have their hands full with thankless work and this provides a small time saving and more important consistency.
Curator feedback
"As Curators we often come across an account that is not sourcing properly. Sometimes this could simply be a user not understanding that they need to do this, and others it’s intentional.
We always want to give a user a chance though, in case it’s a simple mistake. Many curators will leave a comment to explain what the author needs to do differently, but that does take time. Because of this many might not leave a comment at all, which leaves the author uninformed. Having the ability to use this simple command to summon a consistent and easy to understand comment will I believe solve this issue. As well as giving very useful information to users.
From a plagiarism fighting standpoint, repeat offenses will be simple to track by just querying how many times (if any) a comment was left on the account. This will take away the “I didn’t know” excuse many plagiarism fighters, like @jaguar.force and @steemcleaners, hear often.
I think this is a great example of the Steem community coming together to solve a common issue. Looking forward to seeing this project progress and thank @themarkymark for helping making us curators’ jobs a bit easier. It’s much appreciated!"
@llfarms - Curie & C-Squared
Who can use it?
Right now it is open to everyone to use but it was primarily developed with Curators and Spam Fighters in mind.
Any future plans?
Glad you asked! English is not the only language on the blockchain. My plan is to add translations to other languages to allow this to be used regardless of the language.
Anyone knows me knows I am not a fan of doing anything a computer can do for me. So with that in mind, I plan on having the bot read the tags on the post and look for specific languages supported and automatically translate the response.
If a post is posted with the #spanish tag, it will have all the information it needs to know that it should post its response in Spanish. I am getting translations of the message in popular languages and I will update the bot to support this functionality. Right now the bot is a Siamese twin of the glorious !pancakes and !popcorn bot. I plan on changing this so I can easily add the additional functionality without cluttering my vanity bots.
Want to help?
While I don't need any help with the bot, we all need help identifying plagiarists. If you see something you are sure is plagiarized, give it a !sources and kindly remind them.
Thank you for contributing to the antiabuse initiative.
Education is a key factor to reduce the abuse on Steemit. Thanks to your bot guiding users to source their posts is now easy accessable. I am sure that it will help several users to do better in future posts.
Also the curators feedback in this post gives some insights in how this bot can affect the work of curators and abuse fighters.
Well done!
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Thank you for your review, @naturicia! Keep up the good work!
Hi @themarkymark!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your post is eligible for our upvote, thanks to our collaboration with @utopian-io!
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much appreciated, going to make the life of curators easier :)
Well said!
Thanks for doing this! It may seem like such a simple idea, but it’s really helpful. Curators at c-squared are already talking about how useful it is. Thanks for that
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!pancakesanywhere on the blockchain and we will send you a menu.It definitely does sound better to have curators approach the said offenders before sending a barrage of flags.
I think most of us prefer people changing their ways than being stubborn to the bitter end.
Don’t you ever just want to flag first?? 😂😜
Nah, you’re completely right.. I think we just want to make sure things are done right and we are rewarding the right people. Hopefully this helps educate a bit.
Yes, that has happened on occasions. Like those bidding on plagiarized content.
I have been waiting for this bot and have already used it, thank you @themarkymark :)
Another great tool!
Curators or spam fighters may understand the language there calling the bot on. So, they may command the bot with a language shortcode (ISO 639-1).
E.g.:
!sources BNor!sources bnIf it can be implemented this may help the bot recognizing the language if there is no language tag in the post.
I can help with Bengali translation if needed.
I was going to see how it goes, if there is a frequent occurrence of no tag, I was going to add sources [language]
Is there a lot of Begnali content on Steem? If so, would love a translation, just send me a HackMD link.
Since a language tag isn't always used, or variants are used - #es, #espanol - what about having the bot reply to the same command in different langauges, with that language? That isn't perfect either I suppose, since the word is the same in some languages. But if someone writes !quellen it could reply in German. Or would that require multiple bots?
That's a useful tool!
I'd use more cautious language, though, like @cheetah does, because you can't always be sure who was the original creator. There are bloggers who copy content from their own website. There are even musicians who get takedown requests on Youtube for singing their own songs.
There is bound to be some degree of error but from my experience most of the time it is stolen.
nice choice in the last gif :'D haven't watched that movie in decades.
This is a very good idea, I see plagiarism every day.
gonna be pretty useful huh ;)
Oh yeah 😉
When I post a youtube video I never share the "source" as I assumed they are getting credits to the view from the video?
I can see stealing a video from youtube and then putting it on like Dtube, but maybe I'm just misunderstanding what the Youtube video comment is referring to.
That means someone is using a YouTube video as the sole content to be voted on. Sometimes, they do pretend that is their video.
Some go as far as bidding them. Then, they would say they are "sharing content", but the need to buy votes seems unnecessary. Especially when there exist people who do that several times a time as "posts".
In this context, it involves curators. So, it is assumed that "content sharer" is trying to receive votes from curators for "not their work".
Sharing a video is sharing a video, you need to update your ideology and introduce reforms, like this excellent idea from markymark that will help user retention if its used before someone gets attack flagged.
Read my comment again.
Trying to receive votes from curators with content that is not theirs.
I don't post very often, but when I do, I purchase some Steem and spend it (promotion bots), if more people did this, the price of Steem would increase.
Creating "original content" and then cashing out your earnings, puts a downward pressure on the Steem price.
NO unfortunately the majority of curators are looking for a return on their vote and following the money! Get real please!
If you want more people to invest in Steem then collectively, we Steemian's need to stop doing stuff that is detrimental to investing!
Stop blaming bid bots for everything, they drive the creation & money flow of Steem (growth) and put an upward pressure on the Steem price!
Stop censoring / scaring away users indiscriminately @amnlive is a recent example.
Stop giving bid bot users a bad experience, by robbing them first with no capped losses and then finishing them off with indiscriminate flagging.
Yes, printing more liquid Steem totally increases price. /s
So according to you we should restrict the money supply (decrease growth) and just allow its use for the "worthy ones?" Lol 😀
If I wish to share a video and then pump it with bid bots, that is perfectly fine, your comment states that is not the case.
Expect to get flagged, then.
In fact, you'll probably get flagged from @themarkymark too. Do as you wish.
You need to reform, why get offended and attack someone if they want to promote an excellent video that they have found?
Bid bot usage helps the Steemit economy.
SWeet!! Great creation, love this Marky!
@themarkymark, your pancakes are ready!
Source
you need to implement a check to avoid multiple comments on the same post
On the list once I break it out into its own bot.
!sources
!sources
When posting content that either is owned by someone else or inspired by someone else’s works, it is proper to list the said source in your post with a link to the original.
Failing to do so is considered plagiarism, and could result in being blacklisted by curation groups or even flagged.
Examples include:
When posting content that either is owned by someone else or inspired by someone else’s works, it is proper to list the said source in your post with a link to the original.
Failing to do so is considered plagiarism, and could result in being blacklisted by curation groups or even flagged.
Examples include:
Yes, that makes more sense, sources answering to the main or upper comment.
Because the !sources poster usually knows the rules :)
When posting content that either is owned by someone else or inspired by someone else’s works, it is proper to list the said source in your post with a link to the original.
Failing to do so is considered plagiarism, and could result in being blacklisted by curation groups or even flagged.
Examples include:
When posting content that either is owned by someone else or inspired by someone else’s works, it is proper to list the said source in your post with a link to the original.
Failing to do so is considered plagiarism, and could result in being blacklisted by curation groups or even flagged.
Examples include:
Cool!
Lol, a delegate balance...
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Thank you and I am surely going to use it and try it and Will let you know what happened When I do. Always interesting right.
Have great sourced-popcorn-pancake day 😉
Is it really necessary to mention the source when linking to a YouTube video? The author information is typically readily available in the video itself.
The idea is when people post a youtube video and that's it. I'm going to update the comment to be clear it is the first draft. But no, I wouldn't expect anyone to source a YouTube video, it's sourced very well on YouTube.
But making a post with nothing but a YouTube video is a completely different story.
You got a 47.67% upvote from @ocdb courtesy of @llfarms!
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Well in my case I never use anything that's not mine but sometimes I forget to add the credit along with it, still it is always embedded in the metadata, I specifically include that information in the picture for copyright purposes, but all in all I think it's an excellent idea.