Plagiarists, Abusers and Rewards Pool Abusers Earning Too much? Weekly follow-up - Part 2

Also a plagiarist with big cojones! plagiarism is nothing new under the sun so I am here to play my part in the fight against plagiarism. In the first part of this segment, I talked about possible plagiarists and how much of the rewards pool they seem to take every week. This number is so big that it could get me out of debt in one month.

Whether on steemit or on some other website, there will always be someone trying to copy someone elses work. Steemit works a lot like a business. It's not just about creating great content but contributing to the betterment of the platform. Are you contributing, or just creating? It's okay to just contribute, or just create. Especially if you lack creativity. I still believe that all minds are creative in some way.

Here is one mind that is holding out on us by plagiarizing instead of sharing their creativity with us: @ryanelnieno
. (You should follow the real author of the post above!)

I thought this guy had some big balls for copying a post that was barely a day old from the time he copied it, and then I saw he had been flagged by a level (72) dolphin for copying a post that said dolphin made. Word for word. Guys got big balls, seeing as to how the post I saw him copy was originally made by a female and the dolphin he copied was a male.

We need to do our part in fighting plagiarism on this platform! I have seen other people saying the same thing, and as a newbie I agree 100%. With flags taking up voting power and what I've seen as a common misconception of what flagging is intended for in the name of rewards dispute or correction, there is also what I consider a very useful tool with potential called Mute. There is no cost to mute a plagiarist, and power in numbers works. I'm not opposed to fighting plagiarism with flags either as I flagged the guys post and saw that I successfully took $0.02 SBD away from his reward.

Last week I made a list of 82 accounts that were abusing @juliank's photocontest in some way, whether through plagiarist or abuse/manipulation of his contest in some way, and also showed the amount of money that potentially paid out to plagiarism.

I reached out to one of the users on the list, @skysnap, in an attempt to help make the list smaller since I had determined that he didn't exactly plagiarize but he may have overused the contest tags to end himself up on the black list. Since juliank is dealing with a lot of abuse on his contest alone as opposed to the platform or plagiarism, I realized I have a lot more work to do to decipher who is plagiarizing and who isn't.

His latest and greatest blacklist however; has almost doubled in the span of 8 days. This means that a mere $9,000 a week being paid out to plagiarists and people who abuse the platform, rewards pools and user-ran contests is a low and conservative number.

This is not to say everyone on this list is a plagiarist, but even if a small handful are, there is still a lot more out there that haven't been caught or added to any list yet.

While I was able to remove one user due to a possible accidental abuse of a user-ran account I was still able to replace that person with a plagiarist I found all on my own and it was not intentional either (as shown above)

Total accounts last week: 82
Total accounts now: 149

Name	Acct Value	Potential Rewards $	Potential Rewards %
@trickstar95	$88.73	$9	0.0002%
@goleary	$1.81	$1	0.0000%
@manokna	$56.34	$5	0.0001%
@reyajahmedrazu	$30.93	$33	0.0008%
@paulinak	$1.47	0	0.0000%
@punjolife	$6.48	$28	0.0012%
@steemit-earn	$61.13	$53	0.0013%
@totyahmed731993	$140.65	$119	0.0029%
@saifulnizam	$1.46	0	0.0000%
@ryansatterlee	$9.41	$66	0.0015%
@julia00	$5.22	$5	0.0001%
@nyankichi-lab	$1.47	$30	0.0007%
@amity123	$11.92	$236	0.0056%
@anisrehman	$7.21	$0	0.0000%
@khalidfarki	$16.50	$7	0.0002%
@udayakumarage	$217.94	$244	0.0058%
@sam1210	$54.07	$413	0.0099%
@suzayn17	$10.74	$98	0.0023%
@joe28	$523.95	$48	0.0011%
@idbenadi	$1.47	$0	0.0000%
@miupiu	$10.10	$4	0.0001%
@klasanaj	$114.51	$103	0.0025%
@traveldiaries	$63.87	$0	0.0000%
@elsaif	$49.81	$4	0.0001%
@bozo	$1,238.85	$165	0.0039%
@mr-android-guru	$11.44	$0	0.0000%
@andisantos	$20.93	$11	0.0003%
@rufat	$15.78	$95	0.0023%
@hassanben	$72.96	$60	0.0014%
@mzee	$59.92	$8	0.0002%
@kaleem345	$400.04	$123	0.0029%
@poloneixx	$2.70	$9	0.0002%
@helmi	$95.26	$5	0.0001%
@askmee	$1,151.83	$90	0.0022%
@aliallafi	$7.50	$31	0.0008%
@vasa-the-mission	$5.20	$0	0.0000%
@bankthecrypto	$6.93	$13	0.0003%
@hetty-rowan	$3.03	$19	0.0005%
@teenno	$9.38	$61	0.0015%
@aherbil	$131.04	$21	0.0005%
@biomanu	$14.01	$148	0.0036%
@azen	$85.08	$43	0.0010%
@alanmirza	$367.25	$23	0.0005%
@saifulazhar	$9.59	$84	0.0020%
@jemmy	$140.66	$121	0.0029%
@akilasultana373	$219.54	$1,305	0.0315%
@joalex	$2.35	$1	0.0000%
@labony	$12.18	$17	0.0004%
@yousef-kwida	$1.47	$1	0.0000%
@kamariah	$2.85	$9	0.0002%
@drawesome24	$56.56	0	0.0000%
@focusonmarketing	$123.62	$2	0.0001%
@talalfarooqi	$38.34	$145	0.0035%
@hasan.imran	$18.82	$32	0.0008%
@sarahben	$9.54	$3	0.0001%
@foodforcomfort	$17.83	$15	0.0004%
@abed4	$261.23	$3	0.0001%
@halim-sbd	$2.87	$9	0.0002%
@adnanmajeed	$511.74	$118	0.0029%
@odsam2	$352.00	$148	0.0036%
@dieterschneider	$351.47	$457	0.0112%
@amelia666	$2.99	$158	0.0039%
@lhecenam	$295.39	$22	0.0005%
@somenathsen	$477.72	$189	0.0046%
@hotrix	$230.07	$0	0.0000%
@yann0975	$2,012.72	$861	0.0212%
@rojinstha13	$18.90	$54	0.0013%
@zabran	$1.47	$0	0.0000%
@hangin	$427.42	$259	0.0063%
@digitalxing	$40.39	$19	0.0005%
@yousafharoonkhan	$21.06	$8	0.0002%
@harleyy	$6.18	$4	0.0001%
@ridoykhan22	$40.07	$44	0.0011%
@aktualbireuen	$88.30	$22	0.0005%
@hassanbenali	$70.23	$32	0.0008%
@aaceh	$6.35	$0	0.0000%
@basarkhan96	$2.79	$0	0.0000%
@activee	$4.35	$8	0.0002%
@kerry234	$68.68	$7	0.0002%
@erikc	$2.50	$0	0.0000%
@melindaa	$5.36	$2	0.0001%
@nasional	$1.51	$54	0.0015%
@oviani	$18.14	$0	0.0000%
@ridwant	$591.36	$0	0.0000%
@n2ahmed	$4.43	$1	0.0000%
@phogyan	$359.55	$99	0.0024%
@billibong	$12.85	$5	0.0001%
@rashley01	$65.79	$0	0.0000%
@rijal8466	$4.01	$86	0.0038%
@nurzahri	$19.21	$4	0.0001%
@bibkchhetri	$230.85	$1	0.0000%
@piach	$54.99	$91	0.0023%
@mehdiharrazi	$1.67	$0	0.0000%
@mtmatrans7	$8.03	$3	0.0001%
@ajitb1	$5.64	$22	0.0006%
@ghulammurtaza315	$1.55	$0	0.0000%
@mustafakamal94	$5.31	$1	0.0000%
@messinaldo	$45.32	$80	0.0021%
@phortun	$644.52	$1,300	0.0347%
@ultravioletmag	$2,321.84	$369	0.0095%
@farhansteem	$23.00	$4	0.0001%
@ahmed-prof	$3.64	$1	0.0000%
@cakemovesmikey	$133.29	$4	0.0001%
@timoshey	$291.51	$356	0.0091%
@khobi7	$4.17	$0	0.0000%
@violetapuspita	$7.87	$0	0.0000%
@janelaurico	$1.64	$49	0.0012%
@hdpic-steem	$12.95	$2	0.0000%
@pratyush149	$10.14	$3	0.0001%
@babelek	$8.88	$18	0.0005%
@hasanuddin	$223.11	$83	0.0021%
@pujastudio	$32.34	$15	0.0004%
@kawsardj	$45.88	$0	0.0000%
@johurul	$6.88	$12	0.0003%
@rohez	$2.52	$156	0.0039%
@djpoertsch	$500.50	$95	0.0024%
@atosz33	$19.05	$3	0.0001%
@billeldahi	$2.40	$0	0.0000%
@fahrizalarif1995	$6.45	$10	0.0003%
@hichemfetoui	$258.84	$295	0.0075%
@catfacts	$206.38	$46	0.0012%
@engzp	$18.95	$10	0.0003%
@beforandafter	$92.75	$81	0.0021%
@naseerbhat	$276.72	$12	0.0003%
@farhannaqvi7	$288.65	$158	0.0040%
@farhan532	$86.45	$508	0.0128%
@yasirmirza	$129.46	$20	0.0005%
@frank0990	$1.91	$2	0.0001%
@muhdagayon	$5.45	$13	0.0003%
@shuvomallick	$16.85	14	0.0004%
@darlenys01	$129.69	$187	0.0048%
@lungman	$1.88	$0	0.0000%
@steemitcomunity	$37.63	$13	0.0003%
@angelro	$1.49	$5	0.0001%
@dedicatedguy	$1,132.88	$741	0.0190%
@arabnews	$12.43	$6	0.0002%
@aligufron	$28.40	$0	0.0000%
@sarah00	$6.56	$9	0.0002%
@radeuane	$15.79	$1	0.0000%
@azizuddin	$5.24	$14	0.0004%
@abhas9	$1.49	$0	0.0000%
@johurulbot	$33.41	$1	0.0000%
@everything-4you	$7.20	$21	0.0005%
@ryanelnieno	$5.64	$1	0.0000%
Total:	$19,724.95	$11,695	0.2933%

$20,000 in value, a whopping $12,288 in payouts in 7 days! That's potentially 0.3092% of the rewards pool going to plagiarism, abuse, upvote bot abuse and more. I understand there's a mad dash for the cash and everyone wants to collect as much as possible but good, quality content will give much greater rewards. Between this and the rewards pool abuse being conducted by whales I could be partially retired and something needs to be done or the longevity of this platform will be more short-term and can be replaced by a competing platform. Something I'd rather not see

With so many rewards going to possible plagiarists [some confirmed] as well as people who try to take advantage of any user-ran event ontop of ridiculous abuse of the rewards pool, something needs to be done. As the platform gains attention it should be known that free speech and sharing ones own thoughts is great but plagiarism and taking advantage of people is not. If you seriously can't think of something unique all on your own you shouldn't be posting! This doesn't mean there's no place for you but I see little to no effort put in by some of these accounts while they just take the money and transfer it out for trading. Not to say this is a bad move but they are undeserved gains. It has also been a little tough covering going through so many accounts to determine plagiarism and a good argument to go by is that these people have not bothered to contest their bad standing.

As I stated in my last post regarding this issue, I am not accusing anyone here, just bringing up the possible rewards being handed out to potential plagiarists and abusers. I am also certain that not every plagiarist is on this list, and for every legit user that ended up here by accident there's a plagiarist lurking somewhere that can be caught and added.

It is also important to note that some of the people on this list are heavily using upvote bots which falls under the category of rewards pool abuse through upvote bots and that is a whole different issue being discussed throughout the platform and one I posted about here

I suggested universal blacklist last time and after doing some digging I see that some have already attempted this. One with a bad approach and another that never seemed to have gotten anywhere. I could see the controversy in a blacklist and do not think it should be a bot or automatic. I see a possible solution to implementing a third party website, using the flag system more and even having a universal blacklist for people to get muted, since an auto-flag blacklist bot can be seen as bullying if one ends up on it by accident.

By all means if you're being wrongfully added let me know and I'll remove right away, however; it's not just plagiarism that will get you on this list. It's abuse, bot abuse and more which all requires further investigation but I would like to see this list shrink not grow! If you feel you've been wrongfully added to this list, you were at best accidentally abusing the photocontests and you should follow the rules so you don't end up here again.

Take care Steemians! Be vigilant, keep your eyes open, thank you for reading and let me know your thoughts.

@bitfiend