One of the founding and guiding principles of the FreeCompliments Community is the freedom to express whatever content you like without fear of suppression. It is something that I, as the founder, hold very dear to heart, having seen the effects of suppression on my family members before they came to the United States.
Of course, this is a broad topic which opens up many different schools of thought and criticisms. On Web 3.0, with Hive's monetization model, this becomes even more complicated.
Our Policy on Plagiarism
We 100% will not support direct plagiarism of content. If you copy someone's work, whether it be text, images, art, etc., it must come with a source. If you do not do this, then you are effectively earning money off of someone else's work without providing them credit, which is equivalent to theft, and theft is illegal. This will not be tolerated and will not be curated.
We've already dealt with a case of plagiarism. Our approach was one of teaching and forgiveness. We strongly believe that it is possible for someone to make changes to their behavior without resorting to harsh measures and processes to redeem themselves. I believe that the ability to forgive someone is a virtue, as it is not easy to do and requires genuine effort - but that it can also have lasting positive effects if implemented with proper teaching.
Conversation with Hivewatchers
Over the course of the past day, this difference of opinions has resulted in a disagreement between myself and hivewatchers. You can see the entirety of the conversation here. I will also post screenshots below.
I think it'll be much easier to read this within the link itself, but that's totally up to you!
An Analysis of the Situation (With My Own Bias)
In short, my point of view is that copied content, as long as it's completely sourced and posted only once, can add value as a form of social media. They may contain pieces of information or news that would otherwise not be seen by people if they are not shared. Hive is expanding in its scope, and snackable content is becoming more prevalent on the blockchain, something which we can see in spades on Threads, the center of microblogging activity.
As such, I believe that there is a place for such content on the blockchain, and particularly in our community. Censoring such posts would go against our principles of free speech, specifically permitting free exchange of ideas and content without the fear of censorship or negative repercussions.
I also believe that as an active and growing community, we can self-govern the content that we wish to have, and that a small group of outside actors with great stake should not cancel out the majority of individuals' perspectives.
Furthermore, I believe that we can reduce the burden on the rewards pools by curating such content with a minimal vote (just enough to surpass a dust, a.k.a. worthless vote). That way, we reward the benefits of sharing content while still encouraging original content with higher rewards and curation.
Now, some great points were brought up to counter this, particularly the questionable legality of earning rewards off of someone else's content if they did give express permission, even if the source is available. Is this fair use of content, or is it still plagiarism just because it's monetized? There are certainly arguments that could support either side of this. The 2nd to last comment by the SBI-booster account gave a strong description of the potential downsides.
Changes to HSBI Rewards
As per the wishes of the founder of HSBI, "While we believe that the choice of which accounts represent quality should be up to the individual, we agree that plagiarism, fraud, and minimal effort content should not receive a slice of the reward pool."
Since this discussion centered around content which is shared and links to the source without adding any additional content, we will respect the project's wish and, effective immediately, cease all HSBI rewards for such content.
However, we may still continue curation via our fc-curation and related community accounts. This is a decision I'm going to leave to our community members.
Our Choices - 3 Questions
Thus, I would like to put this concept to a community vote. We are specifically addressing content which copies directly from another source, but links and acknowledges the source. Here are the three questions which I will put up for a vote.
If you agree, please upvote or respond with "yes" or "agree." If you disagree, please downvote or respond with "no" or "disagree." Vote percentages will not be taken into consideration, so whether you want to use 0.1% or 100% is up to you - the vote will be identical.
These three questions will determine our next steps, and the freedom with which we permit posting within the community. My personal votes will align with what I have said previously (yes, yes, and no), and I will vote as a regular member, meaning my votes will be worth the same as everyone else's votes. I strongly encourage you to think about the information presented here and make your own decision. The more votes we receive, the better an idea we will have of what the community prefers.
Conclusion
We have a difficult decision to make regarding how we’re going to curate certain posts from now on. Your voice and opinion is very important and does matter, so I hope that you’ll participate in directing this community towards its best path. Thank you in advance for your participation!
Disclaimer: FreeCompliments will be a beneficiary for this post, and I will attempt to boost it via Ecency points as well.
Here’s a permanent invite link to the FreeCompliments Discord!
Follow our curation trail and earn 1 HSBI per month!
