My First Encounter With Cheetah Bot- From Indignance To Humble Acceptance

in #steemit6 years ago (edited)

cheetah-cub-2818830_1280.jpg
PHOTO SOURCE: PIXABAY.COM

Hi fellow Steemians,

I would like to share my valuable experience with @cheetah- a bot which detects online articles with content similar to posts by Steemians- yesterday.

After posting my article regarding the issuance of a grant to a crypto startup by the state government of Queensland in Australia, I saw a dreaded comment by @cheetah saying that it found similar content to my article, which is a tacit way of alluding to work that might have been plagiarised.

A deep sense of aggrievement engulfed me as I have always prided myself in being careful to properly cite image or content sources. As such, my first encounter with @cheetah after 7 months on Steemit really roiled me.

In a heightened emotional state, I replied to @cheetah in the below manner:

"Hi @cheetah,

For this artice, I quoted my photo source and also acknowledged that the story was reported by Cointelegraph.

I also mentioned where the quotes came from.

I stated that the quote by the co- founder and CEO of Travelbybit came from Cointelegraph.

I also stated that the quote from Queesland Innovation Minister Kate Johns is from an official statement, meaning that it came from a government press release- which is essentially public information.

I had my own unique angle for the story, which can be seen when I broached the question of whether Australia's establishment is softening its negative attitude towards the crypto industry."

My reply to @cheetah, however, was insufficient to assuage my resentment, and I continued to seek reassurance and affirmation by asking for the opinion of senior Steemians regarding @cheetah's comment on my post via the discord channels of Steem Basic Income and Steem Cleaners- which works in conjunction with @cheetah to detect plagiarised work on Steemit.

Many thanks to @josephsavage and @tcpolymath from Steem Basic Income's discord channel for shedding light on the modus operandi of @cheetah and highlighting that it is fine so long as content sources are properly cited, as a comment by @cheetah is merely to draw attention to the content source of a post.

I would also like to thank Leonis from Steem Cleaners' discord channel, who made a poignant point that jolted me out of my disgruntled stupor.

Leonis commented that @cheetah will swing into action if we quote a signifcant portion from the content source, not withstanding the presence of proper citation.

After Leonis' words, I instantly went into an introspective state and took a second look at my post.

I realised that I had taken two relatively lengthy quotes from the content source without paraphrasing, and that might have triggered @cheetah.

After kicking myself for my initial chagrin over @cheetah's comment, I proceeded to write this post.

Why did I do so?

Because I felt that I learnt an important lesson today, and feel a pressing need to share with my fellow Steemians.

Excessive pride in my work had blinded me to @cheetah's well intended comment, which is meant to spur Steemians to higher standards of content integrity in order to enhance the appeal of Steemit and ensure its long term sustainability.

Please feel free to comment and share similar experiences.

Thank you for reading and have a great weekend!

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I really appreciate this perspective. Cheetah as a call to 'higher standards of content integrity'.

Thank you for reading. Cheers and have a good weekend!

meant to spur Steemians to higher standards of content integrity in order to enhance the appeal of Steemit and ensure its long term sustainability. ~ well said.

Steemit has almost unlimited potential- I could see this my first few days on the platform and I mirror them today. Because of the users.

:)

Thank you for your input and hope that your contest attracts more Steemians with awesome stories!

Absolutely :) and, thanks hun!

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