What is "Original Content" to Steemians?
This is a re-post of a comment I made under Dan's recent post and I wanted it to get some more exposure and responses from the Community. I've been asked to re-post a few of my longer comments/rants as separate post but I didn't really see the point, until now. Sometimes comments simply get lost or for whatever reason people only like replying to the the original post. For that reason I am re-posting this one on it's own with some minor adjustments for clarity. It's kind of ironic I'm re-posting this, isn't it? ;)
Original Content
Over the past few months we've been testing content in an attempt to find out what would be upvoted here on Steemit. One thing we've noticed is that "original content" has a different meaning for different people.
What does "Original Content" mean to Steemians?
For some "original content" means that the author of the post created the content that is being posted on Steem. That content could have been created 10 years ago, posted on several other social media sites and will still be considered "original content" by the voters.
For others "original content" means that the content the author posted here on Steem is the first iteration of said content (it does not exist anywhere else on the Internet). To me personally, this is my definition of "original content" when it comes time to vote on Steem.
CrossPosting ≠ Original Content for Steem
Crossposting content from other social media sites does nothing to help the search engine rankings for Steem and some would argue it hurts Steem, especially when large quantities of duplicate content exist. Some content creators take the time to create an entirely new piece of work here on Steem and I feel that they should be rewarded more than crossposters who simply copypasta year(s) old work. These crosspost should also include a disclaimer alerting voters to the fact that the material is not original to Steem and provide a link to the original version.
Search engines love original content and hate duplicate content. A website's ranking and reputation is lowered if it contains duplicate content, especially in large quantities. Currently Steem voters appear to be rewarding anyone that can copypasta years old work from one website over to Steem. We found this out early when we posted a three year old blog post here and no one called us out ... well one person almost did by pointing out how it did not seem to fit with the times. When we explained how old the post actually was it made sense to them, but we still got the upvotes.
Crossposting Bonanza = Less Rewards for OC
Does this mean we can go back and copy every article we've ever published off of our blogs here to Steem and they will be upvoted thousands of dollars? The short answer to that question is apparently ... yes. There are people doing exactly that right now and they are being rewarded handsomely for their duplicate content that took no more effort than to copypasta from one site over to Steem and do a little reformatting.
At the same time we have content creators providing truly original content to Steem that exist nowhere else on the Internet that receive little to no upvotes. Personally I find this troublesome from a search engine optimization standpoint and for the future of Steem. Will Steem simply become the place where people come to dump their old content that received no compensation in the past to make a quick buck here on Steem? Is that what the Steem Community wants to happen? Is this truly "original content" by the Steem Communities definition?
Crossposting Bots
Currently we have a bot that will crosspost for you. I feel this bot would better serve the Steem Community if it's actions could be reversed. Have the author post the content to Steem first, then crosspost that content to the other social media sites, if that is possible.
Make your vote count!
Is crossposted material as valuable as original content to Steem? It's not to Google or any other search engine. In fact it is far less valuable and carries a "fine", if you will, for it's existence on Steem. The Steemit.com website will be pushed down in the search engine rankings due to the duplicate content. Voters need to vote appropriately when dealing with a known crosspost, but without the author pointing it out, it is up to the Community to do a little work. User @ash has been very good at identifying plagiarism on more than one occasion and alerting the Community.
We're unable to get rid of the post and save the site from the duplicate content, but we can at least stop rewarding this behavior which can be detrimental to Steemit.com's search engine rankings and reputation. It is up to each individual voter to decide whether or not to upvote crossposted content, but keep in mind that your vote could ultimately make Steem a duplication machine for content from other social media sites like Reddit, Medium or Tumblr, or make Steem something unique that stands out on the search engines and is known for truly "original content".
Conclusion (tl;dr)
- Should a content creator who crosspost be rewarded?
- Do we want Steem to become a duplication factory for old Internet content and continue rewarding crosspost even though it hurts Steemit.com?
- Personally I would rather reward content creators who are posting truly "original content" here on Steem; content that does not exist on any other website and thereby increases the search engine prominence of Steem, instead of giving it the reputation of a repository for duplicate content and hurting it's reputation with search engines.
I agree with you. I don't think we should completely shun or ban by downvote content that is not 100% original. But a disclaimer would be very nice. The possibility to have an advance feature in the "canonical" would have the search engines actually giving us a thumbs up for pointing back to the original piece of content.
This way, people who already spent hundreds of hours working on content may be finally able to monetize it without hurting the rankings of Steemit.com.
Is there a way to reward exclusive on steemit.com published content more then duplicated? Anyway i agree with you as well!
#OSC - Original Steem Content.
I voted for this duplication because I think it is important and needs as much visibility as possible. I agree that truly original content is that which comes from the author/poster and is given first public viewing within Steemit. Although I still value that which is of high quality from other platforms or art/photos which the creator has already shown elsewhere.
Some type of community curation mark would be better than an automated solution. (I can't see that working well when you can quote something someone said or include data) Maybe the steemit website could display an OC icon based on active curators marking posts with a button or #oc reply. If enough active curators mark it as Original Content, then it gets an icon.
I agree totally with you, an original content is that one that is created by the person who publishes it, and it should be rewarded this one better than one "copied" of another place, but I think that it is very difficult to distinguish which is genuine and which is a copy.
Also I think, that though a copied publication is less valuable, it does not stop being an information that in any moment could be interesting, since it can be copied of a place to which we do not visit and to which we accede thanks to steemit. A content copied also is valuable providing that it is of quality and of interest.
I do not see rightly they are the persons who duplicate post of steemit to extract benefit with the work of others. But also it is very difficult to distinguish them.
Regards!
This tool can be used to identify crosspost and plagiarism ... http://smallseotools.com/plagiarism-checker/
Plagiarism should never be upvoted. Crosspost (where the original author is simply re-posting their material from another site) are subjective on an individual basis, but overall I don't feel they offer Steem much benefit and they hurt the site with search engines. I feel the author would be doing us all a favor by simply linking to the original post on the other website or deleting the content from the other website and waiting a few days before re-posting to Steem.
Cross-promote, don’t cross-post. :)
Exactly, cross promote, I've just seen an excellent TED talk here https://steemit.com/life/@connorcranston/best-ted-talk-period-how-to-get-whatever-you-want-in-life and it is a promotion and I feel the better for having seen it.
It made me think of this post again, nothing wrong with promotion, lazy cross posting never gets my vote, mainly because it never gets my attention.
CG
It's funny, I was thinking about that comment this morning and was going to suggest that you post it as an article.
I used the hashtag #OriginalSteemContent this morning on my post and I'm going to add it to all my original posts.
One thing I will say about crossposting though, is that if the Steemit post ends up being more popular than the original,. then that's a good thing. Isn't it?
I posted a video tutorial this morning and I'm hosting the video on Youtube as unlisted, so hopefully it gets lots of views here and hardly any on Youtube, thus giving a good SEO rank for that video and Steemit as a whole.
Crossposting doesn't harm Facebook, often the FB post will be above or just below the OP.
CG
#OSC ... despite my long winded post, I prefer brevity. :)
So it is up to the Community to filter out crossposts, but instead of downvoting, let the user, who find the duplicate make a Reply in which he points out the problem, because there are lots of reasons to downvote the post beside copypasta.
I think average Steemit reader do not waste the time for identifying the source of the post, he/she just read :-)
You are probably right. Generally I only check for crossposting or plagiarism on high paid articles that are well written, since they are the likely candidates.
I think a policy of linking material from elsewhere is the way to go. It's not plagiarism and it doesn't risk violating any licensing by duplicating to a new medium, and most of all it is honest about intent. That is to say, you have linked it because you are interested in discussing the content with the Steem community.
Personally I recently posted a link about tech in the distributed web summit which was somebody else's blog post, and I hesitated to do so because I didn't want to claim credit for it, I just thought the community would be interested (turned out they weren't, no comments at all!) To my mind, if I could have disabled payout for the main article other than that generated through comments I would have.... My contribution would only be a contribution if the Steemit community cared to discuss it.
In that example it's all pretty moot, but that's how I felt about it. I think a bot that comments on articles that it detects as being duplicate, linking the source article is probably a good idea - it doesn't enforce anything on the community but does steer it in the direction of acting honestly and safely.
This has been on my mind since first discovering Steem. We don't need duplicates of content that we already have access to elsewhere. What we need is new fresh content, and a new community all willing to contribute. Well said sir
You are talking only about Your posts, but what will happen, if someones simply copy-paste someone's else material? Will he get rewards for this?
Do You think someone definitely finds a source? I have doubts.