Achievement 3 by @cryptogecko, Task : Content Etiquette & Plagiarism

^{Source: Wikipedia}
Plagiarism is stealing other's content without mentioning the proper sources of the content you have borrowed from.

On websites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc, people share other people’s content without mentioning that the content they have shared is not their own and somebody else’s. It does not do any harm to the original poster, but on platforms like steemit and hive, if other people are using your content to post on their profile then there is a monetary and ownership loss for the original poster. What we should do is to always give credits to the original post wherever possible, this way the original poster know that their content is good and other people are enjoying and learning from their content.

Let us see what Merriam-Webster has shared about plagiarism on their website:

^{Source: MERRIAM-WEBSTER'S - Plagiarize Definition}

Proof of Brain is a concept where people produce content using their brains and others curate it to reward them for the produced content. On centralized social media platforms, users produce great content but they only get likes and comments on their content and they just have to be satisfied from the rush they get from all the likes and comments on their content. But on the steemit platform, a user gets monetary rewards for the content they produce. So, why not produce content that is original and is liked by other community members.

There are so many Community etiquettes that should be followed by all the steemit users. All these rules and guidelines help our platform shine among all the other platforms available and also helps users increase their reputation in the process. I have read the Steemit Etiquette Guide post by @thecryptofiend, you can also read the post here.

There is a way of showing that a part of your post is taken from somebody else’s work and has been used in your post. To show that, all you need to do is to always use quotes to enclose the copy-pasted text, and also give a link back to the original post so that people know where you have copied the text from and people can always reference back to the link and see what the originals poster wanted to explain in their post, and why you have used that particular part in your post.

Let us see how you can do that practically:

“Shareholders of social media platforms made billions of dollars from user-generated content. The content creators? They made nothing.” - Source: Steem

I like this paragraph and want to use this in my post, but since this is not my idea and is taken from the official steem website, I should reference the original content. So, how do I do that?

It is simple, all you need to do is to put the whole copied paragraph in quotes and give a source link to the original content page as I have done above.

Or you can use > (greater than), which is a markdown template for formatting/quoting other’s work.

Let me show you how it is done.

“Shareholders of social media platforms made billions of dollars from user-generated content. The content creators? They made nothing.” - Source: Steem

“Every paraphrased paragraph, sentence or idea should have a reference as close to it as reasonably possible to indicate its origin.” - Source: How to Cite a Source by @cryptokannon

There are other steemit community etiquette guidelines that every user should follow, all of these are taken from @thecryptofiend's Steemit Etiquette Guide.

1. Don't post and run - Most people post their content on steemit and never look at other people’s posts. They just post to earn but never give back to the community. Giving back is not always about money. It can be just an upvote or a meaningful comment. If you are not doing that then that means you are just milking the platform and not giving back anything in return which is bad.

2. Don't over-post - A person should never over post because your followers might see it as spam on the platform and you might also lose some of your followers doing this. Only post content that is important to your followers.

3. Don't post nudity or graphic imagery unless you tag it with NSFW - Nudity or graphic imagery might be a perfect recipe to attract people from a certain age group but there are other people also. Like I have enrolled many of my students, most of them are in the 14-18 age group, and I don’t think their parents would want to see them watching all the NSFW content all day. What you can do is to put an NSFW tag so that user has the option to open it if they want otherwise it just sits there.

4. Don't be fake, plagiarise or pass off others' work as your own - Plagiarism is the cruellest thing a person can do on the steemit platform. It is a type of stealing other people’s content without mentioning that the content was borrowed from the person’s original content. You should always reference the original post to let people know that you have borrowed it from that source.

5. Don't engage in tag spamming - You should never use a tag that does not represent your content. Like if I am posting a book or a movie review, I should not use irrelevant tags like “newcomers”, “blockchain”

6. Don't re-steem everything you see - Re-steeming everything you like can be a disaster if your followers don’t like what you are re-steeming. Also, it makes a clutter of the information.

7. Don't post unrelated links in the comments - Posting links in the comment section which are not related to the content shared in the post is going to put you in a bad position, like scamming or sending traffic to sources that are shady. You should refrain from sharing such links.

8. Don't directly ask for votes - The worst thing you can do is post plagiarised content and the other worst thing you can do is ask for votes directly. People don’t like it if what you are sharing is not worth reading.

9. Don't bribe people for votes, re-steems, follow or ask directly for money - Just like posting plagiarised content is bad for your reputation, bribing people to vote on your content and asking people to follow you or re-steem your content directly is also bad. Asking money from people is the worst thing a person can do, except if you are asking it for a charity cause then it is okay, but you should explain how the charity works and how the funds are going to be used.

10. Don't flag content just because you disagree or don't like it - Decentralised platforms are for sharing all types of content and if you don’t like something posted by someone does not mean you should flag it instantly. Every type of content is welcome on the steemit platform and you should respect that.

11. Don't critique people's work unless they have asked you to - As described above, everybody is free to share what they want on the steemit platform, but that does not give you the authority to criticise anybody for the ideas they share, the poster and you might have different perspectives on the same topic but you should only critique the post if the poster has asked you to.

12. Do answer your comments - The best thing about the steemit platform is that you get instant comments on your posts. To convert your readers into your followers, you should always reply to every person who has made a comment on your post.

13. Do help others out and do thank people - If you know some things that might help other steemians, you should share them with others and help them grow on the platform, the worst thing that can happen is the person might start following you. I don’t think it’s bad.

14. Do check out new posts and curate - There are four categories you can sort the result in the post section, among them is the “new” category, which shows all the latest content posted by all the users. You should always eye for such content and curate them whenever possible. It will help the user who has posted the content and others to find good content.

15. Provide verification - Achievement posts are the best way to verify yourself and know the steemit platform better. Achievement 1 is the verification post, and it helps the community to know you better.

So I think this is enough information for a newcomer to start their journey on the steemit platform, and this concludes my etiquette post. I hope if you are reading this, you have understood all the points shared here and I hope you learned something from this post.

"I have read and understood the Steemit Etiquette on Steemit Community and will do my best to embrace them"

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You can check my previously posted achievement tasks here:

1. Achievement 1 by @cryptogecko, Task: Introduction to Newcomers' Community Post Link
2. Achievement 2 by @cryptogecko, Task: Basic Security on Steem Post Link