Should we tolerate spun or rewritten content in a writing platform?
A professor gave an essay assignment to his business ethics class. The topic is 'The Corporate Social Responsibilities to Different Stakeholders".
Two students, Donald and Daisy (not related to the Ducks) are competing for the top of their class.
After class, Daisy, a bright and hardworking student went home right away and started working on her essay. She searched the Internet for resources and wrote her essay. At the end of her essay, she credited the sources of her information.
Meanwhile, as Donald was about to go home, Daffy urged him to play ML with him and Howard. Just one game, Daffy said. So Donald agreed.
But the one game became a dozen games. And it was already late when Donald went home.
After dinner, he remembered his essay assignment. He opened his computer and searched 'essay on The Corporate Social Responsibilities to Different Stakeholders'.
He found one. Then he ran the essay through an article spinner. After that, he printed the essay.
The next day, Donald and Daisy submitted their work, and the professor scanned their work and praised them both.
(To be concluded later...)
Hello, dear readers and content creators. I suppose you might be wondering why I started this post with a school scenario.
The story may be pure fiction, but you might have seen or heard something similar in reality, right?
Disclaimer
Before I continue, a little disclaimer. The story above is pure. The characters mentioned are all imaginary. And the characters are in no way related to the feathered cartoon characters or real-life persons bearing the same names.
Possible Endings
There are several possible ending scenarios to this story.
A. Donald and Daisy Got Equally High Grades
After reading both essays, the professor gave both outputs a grade of 99% each.
Both students are happy.
But later on, Daisy found out how Donald did his work. How do you think she would feel? And how do you think the other students who squeezed their brains out to write their essays?
B. Donald Gets The Highest Grade.
The professor read Donald's essay with delight! It was well written and covered almost all the necessary points. He praised Donald and gave his output a 100% grade. While Daisy got only 99%.
Donald was so proud of his achievement.
C. The Professor Gave a Surprise a One-On-One Interview.
The professor knew that some of the students would try something fishy. So he prepared some questions that he intended to ask his top students.
The first question was,
"Can you name at least one of your resources aside from Wikipedia?"
Daisy instantly named two of her resources and even pointed out which part of her essay those two resources are used.
Then the professor asked Donald the same question.
Donald simply replied.
"Sir, I wrote that essay myself."
How do you think the professor would grade their outputs now?
Now how is this story related to the title of this post?
"Should we tolerate spun or rewritten content in a writing platform?"
To answer that question let's answer several questions.
What is Article Spinning or Article Rewriting?
According to Wikipedia
Article spinning is a writing technique used in search engine optimization (SEO), and other applications, which creates what appears to be new content from what already exists.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_spinning
And according to Plagiarism Today (https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2018/03/08/a-brief-history-of-article-spinning/)
"...it’s a way to easily defeat plagiarism-detection technology."
And this can be done automatically using article spinning tools or manually.
Thus, article spinning is the process of re-writing an existing article so that it will appear different from the original. It is used to create a unique copy of an article.
But, why create a copy of an existing article and make it look unique?
The practice of duplicating an article and spin it to make it look unique is a way to cheat Google for SEO (search engine optimization).
Is Copying Content Legal?
If you have noticed, I underlined the words copy and duplicating.
If the source is copyrighted like from published or printed books or ebooks, copying the content without written authorization is illegal. That includes text, photos, and videos.
If you have or have not heard or read before, LeBron James was sued for using a cropped photo of him on his social media.
https://www.si.com/nba/2020/03/23/lebron-james-lakers-photo-copyright-lawsuit
He (or his social media manager) copied, cropped, and republished a photo of him. Yes, he is the subject of the photo, but the photo belongs to the photographer.
The point is, copying, modifying, and republishing content without authorization from the original author is either copyright infringement or PLAGIARISM.
In the post, I will focus only on Plagiarism.
What is plagiarism?
I have already discussed this in my article "What you should know about spamming, plagiarism, and copyright violation"
Plagiarism is an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/plagiarism
But if we look closely at the meaning of the term plagiarize as defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary.
"to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own: use (another's production) without crediting the source"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plagiarizing
So Is Article Spinning Illegal?
If you are spinning your article and repost it on your blog, then it is completely legal. Assuming that your source article is not plagiarized in the first place.
But if you spin an article written by another author with out authorization then that is plagiarism.
And according to simplewriting.org (https://simplewriting.org/plagiarism-paraphrasing-spinning-original-writing/)
Spinning is just disguised plagiarism.
...Spinning, to me, is worse than plagiarism. At least someone who plagiarizes doesn’t try to hide and might even be ignorant of how serious it is.
Now let's go back to the first question.
❓Should we tolerate spun or rewritten content in a writing platform?
If you are copying the works of others and spin them to avoid the plagiarism checker, then the answer is NO! We should never tolerate stolen content.
If you are spinning your work, that was already posted elsewhere and you indicate where you have posted it, it's fine with me.
HOWEVER, before you start spinning your content and upload them to a platform, have you read the rules yet?
In Publish0x, you can repost your work, as long as indicate where you have posted it before.
But in Read.cash, the rules as stated thru the bot's article 'Have I Tipped You Yet?'
(https://read.cash/@TheRandomRewarder/have-i-tipped-you-a12541ca)/ isquite clearer
And it says...
Non-EXC content. Articles that were published somewhere else. Sorry, guys and girls, but for me, it's original content or nothin'!
Post on read.cash first if you want my tips!
No "EXC" mark - no tip.
Spinning and transactions. If I catch you publishing "spun" articles (where you send your article to a program that replaces all words with synonyms) or articles/new stories translated from other sites in other languages - welcome to my blacklist!
As content creators of a writing site, why should we NOT support spin articles?
If we go back to my story above, there are lots of Daisy's in any writing platform. And paying platforms would always attract a lot of Donalds as well.
Writing platforms were created to support and encourage ORIGINAL content creators to showcase their talents... Your talents!
But the Donalds are just here for the money, and they want to earn, without breaking a sweat. If we tolerate them (by not reporting them), we are encouraging them to continue.
If you are like the Daisy in this platform, who spends some hours composing your article, would you be happy to see a stolen content and earn more than yours?
What are the repercussions if we ignore plagiarized content?
The following points that I will discuss are just my assumptions on what possibly could happen if we continue to allow plagiarism on this platform.
If the admins don't do anything against plagiarism, the original content creators will leave and this platform will be filled with nothing but stolen content.
Naysayers will have a feast then and give negative reviews to this platform and will discourage other writers and content creators from joining. And soon this platform will be nothing but a garbage dump of stolen content.Running and maintaining this platform requires resources- machines, manpower, electricity, and others. And the owners and sponsors spend thousands of dollars for these resources. And the Donalds are stealing those resources. And they are stealing from you as well.
And those stolen content are also consuming those resources.
If we don't help the admins maintain this platform free from plagiarism, they will spend more time and resources detecting and blocking the plagiarists instead of developing the platform further.
Ultimately these three scenarios might lead to one outcome. The closure of this platform.
And we don't want that.
Or a fourth scenario is, this platform will have to implement an article verification that would take days to finish because they are a small team.
Or we will start earning a fraction of a centavo per post, because the funds are diverted to finance the development and maintenance of anti-plagiarism system.
Why Am I Doing This?
I have joined several paying platforms before. Even now, I have active accounts in other writing/content-sharing platforms. But I am most active here in readcash and noise cash. I consider them my online homes.
On other platforms, I was also active in fighting against spammers and plagiarists.
Users like @Bloghound , @MarSou , @Panky@frenchtoast78 among others, whom I knew in tsu (now known as display) knew me (as artbytes26) as one of the members who tried to fight off the spamocalypse tsumbies. Yup that what we call the spanners and plagiarists. It was a loosing battle though. A lot of original content creators left that platform.
I LOVE THIS PLATFORM. I have learned a lot from the different ORIGINAL content creators here. And I want this platform to exist and meet more great writers.
If you love this platform, and if you want this platform to keep on running for a long time, and if you want the sponsors and benefactors of this platform like Mr. Marc De Mesel to continue supporting this platform, STOP SUPPORTING the Plagiarists, and content spinners!
Before I close this post.
@jane remarked that she did not know that a post that she tipped was a plagiarized content and she doesn't have time to check it on a plagiarized checker.
In my next post, I will give share information on
telltale signs of plagiarized content.
What to do and not to do when you spot plagiarized content
some tips on how to share information without plagiarising.
For now, I encourage you to read the following for your guidance
The rules of ReadCash -' Have I Tipped You Yet?'
(https://read.cash/@TheRandomRewarder/have-i-tipped-you-a12541ca)/
More information on plagiarism, paraphrasing, and spinning.
https://simplewriting.org/plagiarism-paraphrasing-spinning-original-writing/
Thanks For Reading
Shoutout to my newest sponsors,
Thank you for your support.
I like to say congratulate you because you have done very hardworkingly. Therefore, you succeeded in getting good marks for your bright future, and now you are deserved of scholarship. https://www.usessaywriter.com/essay-writing-service-in-san-francisco/