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This feels like beating a dead horse, but since we decided to do “abuse” guides, it wouldn’t be complete without doing a guide on plagiarism.

You can find previous information from @steemcleaners here:

When to cite sources
Steemcleaner Report for the Week of Sept 12, 2016 - Sept 18, 2016 Part 1

Hmmm… Seems like we’ve covered that topic pretty thoroughly so here are the highlights:

So, what does @steemcleaners look for and tag as “plagiarism”?

• Word for word copying and pasting from any source.
• Spun content taken from any source.
• Claiming works of art that are not your original work.
• Claiming an idea is your own. Did you really invent the telephone?
• Failing to clearly identify content copied from sources

More information on plagiarism may be found at plagiarism.org. Some topics on the site may or may not apply to users here at steemit.com.
source

@steemcleaners isn’t interested in policing the broader term of “plagiarism” unless someone directly claims to have invented the telephone or electricity.

Some clarifications, as follows:

What is “spun” content?

We define “spun” content, as content that is almost copy and paste, however with small changes to the wording to avoid plagiarism detection tools.

Example of spun content:

Our definition of “spun” content, is content almost copy and pasted, however, contains small changes to words to avoid detection from plagiarism tools.

Image Plagiarism

@steemcleaners would like to see all images that are not original cited. Even if it is just with Public Domain, CC0 or a link to where you found the image.

There are literally millions of high-resolution photo’s available on sites like pixabay.com that are CC0 or public domain.

What is “failing to clearly identify content copied from sources”?

In some cases, your post may draw from other content, and that is fine. However, it is important to clearly identify which part of the content is your own words, and which part you are quoting or referencing from other sources.

That being said, @steemcleaners is not here to police formating. If a contributor has made a reasonable effort to distinguish the difference between their original content and copied content, do not report them for plagiarism. If you feel that strongly about formatting, leave them a comment that helps them use markdown and HTML to format their posts.

To Err is Human

We are all aware there are some bad apples that sign up for steemit and see easy money. They consistently post “spam” in the form of copypasta, plagiarism, affiliate spam, etc.

There are some great community members here that may on occasion make a mistake. Many times that mistake can be rectified on steemit.chat. Sometimes attempts in contacting a community member fails and a comment is left by a member of the team.

A comment and/or flag left by a member of @steemcleaners is not a call for a downvoting brigade. Most of the time, @steemcleaners doesn’t even flag; we try to guide the community in the right direction first and foremost.

Ask @steemcleaners - Future Q&A Posts

@steemcleaners will be doing a semi-regular post titled “Ask @steemcleaners” in the future. If you a question that you feel we haven’t addressed on Plagiarism please post it in the comments. Questions asked may be included in a future “Ask @steemcleaners” posts.