How do we prevent "Copy and Paste" before it happens?
and also how about using random images from flikr.com?
is this allowed or does it violate Copy right laws?
What is the difference between "Public domain" or "publicly available" ?
Below are a couple of questions with a lot of C&P answers with comments.
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/business/how-would-you-run-a-hospital
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/news/who-is-brock-lesnar
Since there will always be new users coming in, I think it's high time Mahalo implemented something to prevent this in first place instead of commenting on the C&P answers.
how about this idea?
C&P Rules in the Answer box
or embed this image (from C&P rules page) in the answer box:
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M$13 Answers
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M$
We have rarely banned anybody for copy and pasting, we find hammering the message across works 9 out of 10 times.
I really like the idea from @stanar to have text present in the text box warning about plagiarism, I am sure it will be something for the devs to consider in the future, but until that day whenever you see plagiarism put a simple comment on their answer offering them some encouragement to improve, mention that it helps the community and as always provide a link to the Copy and Paste Guidelines.
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M$
Another idea might be to send an email to users when they sign up that gives them the "dos and don'ts" of Mahalo, and also provides them with links to all the tutorial pages.
good idea, but how many of us really go through those emails? We learn in real time.
Mostly people don't go through the user manual before using the stuff that comes with that.
All we can really do is educate people around here.
If we all stay vigilant and inform newbies of this rule, it really shouldn't be a continual problem.
What you most likely are seeing is a current high tide of new people who just don't know better. I have seen many a new person start here with a trigger finger on the control c and v on their keyboards. Many of them have stayed and are responsible for good quality answers now.
If you continue to see people abuse this rule, after they have been educated... you might want to forward it on to @jeffhoard or another Mahalo staff.
In the ebb and flow that is the tide pool of Mahalo, I do have faith that people live and learn, but it is up to us all to help and if necessary, report these abuses.
Copy and paste rules would be a nice added feature, but I truly think that community involvement helps to nip it in the bud too!
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M$
Yes, and I like your fix... but it won't solve everything. I just also want to reiterate that with you posting this question by educating and reminding more people, it will work too! (thank you)
It's like voting. Waves of newbies come, and need to be informed and the rest of community reminded every once in a while... and that while is now.
Agreed.
I have already reported about a couple of users.
But there will always be new users coming in. I would recommend a fix for this.
We don't want to have too many instructions for folks ahead of asking and answering questions as less people want to participate.... so, the goal is really to get participation and then "shape the behavior" we want. (see B.F. Skinner and behaviorism for the basic concept of shaping behavior.
So, let folks get into the system but then comment in a helpful way if you see cutting and pasting. if they get three unhelpful votes their answer will collapse and problem solved.
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M$
A simple fix would be to include the guideline text in the answer box and it would mitigate this issue without too many instructions for the new users.
Yes, copied answers can actually be helpful, and I feel the person might have been genuinely trying to help, so I don't often vote them unhelpful just on the basis of C&P alone.
We need to either extend what we understand by "unhelpful" or maybe even rename it to "Not Mahalo Quality?" or somesuch.
I agree that voting and showing the stats for the number of times someone offends is a good deterrent.
But the issue here is sometimes, the C&P answer is the best answer and the most helpful except that it is a C&P without following the guide lines.
Leaving a comment, which we are already doing, is fine, but by marking it "unhelpful", we might lose the most relevant "response" for that particular question.
How does it work for this scenario?
I understand that the "shape the behavior" will work as you go up the belt level.
But since there will "always" (being +ve) be new users on mahalo, the overall C&P behavior will also be at 0 level for many of the new users.
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M$
That is correct @onek! in fact, vote C&P as uNHELPFUL and say why in a comment. folks will learn/folks want to do a good job 99% of the time
I do a lot of article writing and posting for my own interests (mostly SEO) so I know not to copy directly, but to read, absorb and rewrite in my own words from my own memory and understanding of what I have read.
It also helps me to learn the subject I am discussing, copy/paste doest do that. Good suggestions I think, well done.
Me
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M$You would have a program running on a new Mahalo server that takes the given answer and does an internet search to find if the answer was plagiarized.
When the user first submits the answer on MA, it is submitted to the MA server database. You would simply have it also submitted to the the new server where the plagiarize checker program is running. This will reduce impact on MA page views and loading.
The program would use 2 methods in sequence to determine the likelihood of plagiarized text :
1) the first method takes uncommon words (discard words like 'it', 'and', 'the'...) in the answer and when it finds a high probability match of all words on another website (say 80%+), it then proceeds to step 2.
2) The program does an exact (whole word and in-order) phrase/sentence search on that same site/page found in step 1.
If the phrase search comes back with a positive match, the program would then flag the person's answer (visually on the Mahalo Answers page) as possibly being plagiarized, It would set up a vote frame below the answer and we then proceed to step 3.
3) other users on Mahalo could then be able to vote on whether they think it has been plagiarized (link to the original answers page will be provided for the users to compare the two texts)... and perhaps after minimum 10 positive votes from users, the answer could be removed.... or submitted to the MA team for them to remove and decide on punishments if necessary.
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M$
@chriswingate: yes. that is easily done, and recommended.
@stanar's comment "1. it could further slow down how mahalo page loads. "
actually no. it would run on a completely separate server. When the user submits the answer it is submitted to the answers database and also the new server where the plagarize checker program is running.
therefore it will never impact page loads.
it's great idea and the code can be tailored to ignore the quoted text, if it complies with the C&P guidelines. but,
1. it could further slow down how mahalo page loads.
2. and also it could be a overkill since Mahalo allows quoted text as long as it complies with the guidelines.
It's upto the Mahalo team to decide based on how serious this issue is.
for now a simple fix would be to include the guideline text in the answer box.
Would that work with our current guidelines for "quoting" texts we take for our answers? I mean would the program know not to mark anything before or after """" or our quote tag?
I figured, most new users won't take the time to read the rules and regulations. And some will just not care about them. I can't think of any suggestions to alleviate the dilemma. And as for Flickr, well I thought we could use pictures from there freely, but...
Some pictures have a 'copyright' I would say, they have a small description that says you can't use the picture in a blog and other media.
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M$
@krysstel
http://www.copyscape.com - it actually checks pages to see if others had copy/pasted from it.
Great for checking faked blogs too.
eh? what is copyscape?
I see problems with this because:
I personally have written an answer, hit submit, it didnt work so I copied my answer, refreshed and then resubmitted, so it would be marked as copy paste even though it wasn't...
Huge penalties for plagiarism (copy pasting with no quotes or no sources) is also a possibility. This is what many schools do, so like that if someone is caught, maybe the second time they get caught they could be completely banned and lose all their Mahalo dollars. Harsh I know but it is easy to avoid copy and posting with ought putting quotation marks.
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M$
@qdietz - "I personally have written an answer, hit submit, it didnt work so I copied my answer, refreshed and then resubmitted, so it would be marked as copy paste even though it wasn't."
This is about "copy and paste" from external sites without following the Copy and Paste Guidelines . It doesn't apply when you copy and paste your own typed text due to browser issues/submission issues.
@Stanar, @qdietz is right to bring this up, I was going to myself. The reason is that it would be technically quite possible for Mahalo to block cut and pastes but it can't because legitimate uses of the technique are too important.
I understand, I was just saying that if there was a system that would check for the copy paste it would probably check for a sudden jump in the number of characters in the answer box, and then would signal it no matter what as copy paste, so even if you copy paste your own text it would also signal is as copy paste.
Sorry for not being clear, cheers!
Users who copy paste should also be informed. Then if they did copy-pasting of answers again (say like three times) without quoting the text copied from other sites even after informing them about the rules, why not give a small punishment or what? Like for instance deduct -5 from their points just so they would avoid doing copy-pasting.
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M$
"why not give a small punishment or what? "
I dont think we can "punish" users for this as @jeffhoard mentioned and also there will be thousands users and answers a day. How do you keep track of this violation?
Maybe mahalo could add another button "C&P" next to "Helpful Answer". When someone clicks that while voting, it would automatically alert the user and also keep track of the count.
Oh, I thought we have like admins who checks new answers to questions. It's not really a punishment but just like a warning for the user.
Anyway, yes your idea sounds good. A button could be placed on the helpful answer to warn the user about copy-paste rules.
the mods have a special room with a wooden paddle for punishments.
:P
I agree pasting the source should be a requirement.
question like , best way to cook adobo? the best answer would be to find the best answer and help the asker.
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M$
Sure there are many ways to cook adobo but if we are asking about the BEST way to cook it. then it has to come from mr.chef himself" if i add my own touch in cooking adobo. it won"T be the BEST way to cook adobo.
Multiparagraph cut-and-pastes are rarely the best possible answers: Too often, they either contain a lot of unnecessary information when a simple answer would do, or they don't focus on the details of the question. In addition, a lot of questions don't have a single most accurate answer. Using your example, I doubt there's a single "best" way to cook adobo, and I would consider a personal account of various attempts to be a better answer than a cut-and-paste from an online cookbook. To me, an original answer, even if it's a rewrite of information from a linked source, shows that the answerer is at least attempting to add some personal input. After all, Mahalo is "the human-powered search engine," which should be something more than just a data aggregator.
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M$
I thought the whole point of having a "source" field was to show where answers were found.
To many of the questions asked there will be few original answers. I joined Mahalo to answer questions because I seemed to be more skilled at Google'ing than those asking the questions and wanted to help.
I'm not going to go to school to learn all the answers to @davepamn's questions just so I can write the answer in my own words. But that's also why I don't try to answer those questions anymore because the ONLY answer I can give is one that he already knows (or so I assume). So I'd just be plagiarizing some textbook just to be accurate.
Lately I've been focusing on questions that ONLY require personal opinion.
Teaching us how Mahalo wants C&P answers (with proper source quoting) is better than trying to prevent it.
"But that's also why I don't try to answer those questions anymore because the ONLY answer I can give is one that he already knows (or so I assume). So I'd just be plagiarizing some textbook just to be accurate. "
That's a good point. Same here. In the beginining, I used to answer those questions by going to the relevant sites and rewriting some and quoting some text to get the exact terminology and context, though I knew or read some of those topics. But not anymore, unless it really interests me or if it's really something I have a good knowledge about.
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M$
warnings are good for serious offenses (like faking multiple accounts, weird stuff like that)
I say "three strikes and you are out"
fortunately, there seems to be very very little of that at Mahalo
cheers,
K
If it looks and smells like a copy & paste job...
very good answer @chriswingate
as a trained journalist from the 1960 era, the only time I quote something is to make a point
otherwise, whatever i write is "just my opinion" or "what is in my head"
cheers, K
For me, if it really looks like a c&p job, i check it first before voting.
wow, I so did not expect to win this one. :)
"it's really sad when you find a great answer in there but can't morally vote it as the best answer because of a copy and paste job"
exactly that's my point. sometimes I vote those answers the best and then realize they are just C&P, after which we cant do anything.
The only problem I see is if someone asks a question like, "Can you give me a fail free, gluten free tiramisu recipe" I copy and pasted a recipe I found on a website (when I copy and paste I actually link to it though). Someone is asking an answer, Ill give it to them. If most the people on here would take the time to look up the answers themselves (Ie search engines) then this site would actually just be more about peoples opinions.
I think it becomes a BIGGER issue when someone asks you what your opinion is and you go and take someone else’s just because you agree with it. That’s when I think it gets more problematic.