RE: Thoughts on @jpiper20’s Plagiarism: Forgiveness Restores Relationship But Only Trust Can Restore Reputation
I just commented something like this a short while ago. His reputation, along with the reputations of any scammers on this platform, should be 0. They should have to start from scratch, in my opinion. There's absolutely no excuse for deceit/plagiarism - especially when it comes to being paid for it. It's disgraceful. His reputation and rewards were earned largely through deceit. He should be held accountable and pay the price for it.
And it should be noted - as it is with almost all scammers - that he only apologized after he was caught and attempted to further lie about it while the plagiarism was being pointed out to him and flagged the person who called him out. A simple apology post and instant forgiveness is not the way to resolve this and to deter others from doing the same as he did. He's currently sitting on over 6,000 SP and a 67+ reputation. That's more than screwed up. Scammers need to be dealt with more harshly if we want the scamming to stop.
There is definitely truth in what you say. I'm not sure what the answer is. I just know the reputation system does not reflect the real world in situations like these.
If you read the post you will see that I am not a scammer. I am a person just like you who made a mistake. You want to continue to point out the flaws in me but you have yet to talk about any positives I have done on here. I appreciate your thoughts and I am understand why you feel the way you do. Like I said on another response, I will continue to be involved with the community and I will be 100% truthful from here on out. At least I am fixing my mistakes and continuing to build trust on here. I could just walk away from Steemit and live a perfectly happy life. Just for the record, I unflagged the person that flagged me last night. I was wrong to flag him and I also apologize for that. If it makes you feel better, flag every post I create for the rest of my days. You act like I am not a real person with thoughts, feelings and emotions just as you are. I didn't steal an identity or lie about who I am. I got lazy and mixed in some art that wasn't mine. I will live with the guilt I promise you that.
I forgive you @jpiper20. Don't hold on to that guilt. Learn from it and move on. I will not be flagging or unfollowing you myself, but I do agree with these guys that it should be reflected on your steemit rep score and it really isn't at this point. I don't know what the solution is but I know your real rep has been damaged and I know you regret your actions. Don't feel bad, just take your lesson, learn it well, fix the problem, and move on. Nothing but love
I'm sorry @jpiper20 but since I don't have any way of knowing you except through your words, your words don't really reflect contrition. You didn't make a 'mistake', you did 'wrong'. Your use of the word mistake softens your actions and doesn't take full responsibility. I don't wish to be harsh, but sometimes it takes brutal honesty to really own up to what we do wrong.
You are a real person, there is no doubt about that. You did in a sense steal the identity of the person who you stole the creative product and claimed it as your own. That person is a real person as well. As an artist you should have known the wrong you were doing to the person you stole from and then claimed as your own. To a point, you while didn't claim his name, you claimed to be him.
I like that the community, at least some of the community, is willing to give you a chance at redemption but I believe they need complete and utter honesty from you in return. The system may not allow for the number on your reputation to be decreased, but those who know of you, will do that on their own. At least in their own minds. It is for you to earn it back.
I do agree with the author of this post, in that you did damage your reputation through your actions. Your public apologizes have gone a long way in repairing the damage, but to some extent, the damage is done. I don't know what the right solution is. It reveals a small flaw in the current reputation system, in that there really isn't a great way to bring a high reputation user's rep back down, even if there is a legitimate reason to do so. I think there will be a lot of users that feel you should no longer have as high of a score as you do, and that you should work to build it back over time as you regain the community's trust.
I just don't think the mass flagging of him would be right, as some have suggested doing. to me it seems you are taking him out in the middle of steemit square, and flogging him with a whip. The days of public humiliation should be over in the 21st century. Like I said in another post, its up to the developers of steemit to instill proper tools for doing this the right way. The problems with steemit , is the whales seems to use bots the majority of the time, upvoting post in a animated way. I have been watching this for the month+ I have been on this site. Once again, this is a beta platform. I'm sure @ned and @dantheman are working on ways to do this.
Perhaps not, but if mass flagging the plagiarised posts can not bring down his reputation, then something is flawed in the system.
Additional thoughts -
Based on this, I suggest you start over with a new account. You should not have to hold on to guilt from past mistakes once you have owned up to them and done what you could to rectify them. A new account would let you put this whole situation behind you, and give the community a way to let you earn back your rep. Then whatever rep you have on your new account, you could safely say you earned, and it would not carry with it the tarnish of what you did with this account.
I don't agree, if this was that easy, people would just give up their bodies for a new one, once they messed up their current one. I think keeping the current account show ones history on the platform. Creating a new one, will not have the history of what he has done. Newer people that follow @jpiper20 won't see his history. People need to learn from ones history. I had no idea who Jpiper20 was till an hour ago. He is new to me. I, being an struggling artist understand how theft can hurt. I have had people do it to me a couple times. It's a bad situation, yet I want to see what the platform creators will do, to put proper tools into this platform that is still in beta. There is more then just stealing artwork going on in this platform. All these issues need to be ironed out. I really don't know the course of action that should be taken, yet I'm sure jpiper20 will do what ever he can to work toward gaining the trust of the steemit community.
It's an interesting analogy :) I don't disagree with your view.