Hey there, all y'all! It's @shayne again to help you through the potential pitfalls of Steemit by showing you what other people have done in the hopes that you can save yourself from doing the same.

This is sort of a continuation of my post from yesterday

• Steemit Tips: How NOT To Behave on Steemit -- Following and Followers

For this post we'll be dealing with plagiarism.

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The other day I was trolling around over on steemit.chat and this guy popped in and started to apologize to everyone for knowingly plagiarizing content on his Steemit blog.

I asked him a series of questions that showed me that he knew personally that he shouldn't be doing what he was doing, and that he had even been warned by other members about what could happen, and he continued to plagiarize. In other words, he wasn't mistakenly plagiarizing because he just didn't know: he knew what he was doing and continued doing it anyway.

He was quickly flagged into oblivion.

That is when he decided to come to steemit.chat to make his appeal to... the random people that were also trolling the chatroom lol

Here's how part of it went:

I really wasn't trying to be mean to the guy, but he had an air about him as though he was intitled to participate in this community. And that isn't the case, at all.

It's important that people understand that.

It's not cruel to be flagged for plaigerism

Other people spend time creating content. They have a right to recieve compensation for their work if the market deams it of value. You do not have the right to take that person's content without permission and monetize it for your own gain.

That's called theft.

And if your account is flagged into oblivion because you were a serial plagierist, then you got what you deserved.

That's called justice.

Beseaching the community

It's important to note that -- as I understand it -- this user was indeed heard and has been given a second chance.

This is a very gracious act by the community, and should be taken as an act of mercy and not an entidlment.

Because, you see, beseaching the commuinty usually doesn't work. And with good reason.

When you break the rules of a community, and that community values itself, you will be punished and/or shunned, because the community wishes to retain the qualities that make it valuable.

Steemit has a great community of smart, creative people, and in my opinion it deserves protection from people who would steal from it and abuse it. And so someone who is stealing the work of others and posting it on this platform to make money is not welcome and should be expelled quickly.

The fact that someone is sorry after the fact is unfortunate for them, if they are being sincere, but does not necissarily justify them being given a second chance.

What can we learn from this?

In my opinion, simply: do not abuse this community

There are lots of ways that people can try to take advantage of Steemit in the hopes of making a quick buck. But luckily, we have active Steem-cleaners who warn users of the abuse they are commiting and give them warnings to stop before sicking the flag-bots on them.

If you hesitate before posting something because you are worried about it being flagged, my advice is to make a post asking the community if your worries are valad or if you are overthinking things and should just post your content.

Or go to steemit.chat and ask the fine trolls there what they think. You're likely to get a helpful and honest answer.

And if the consensus is that you shouldn't post it, my advice to you is to swallow your pride and listen.

You really don't want to be flagged into oblivion, because most people will not get a second chance.

What do you think?

Post your experiences below. Do you often have questions you need answerd? Have you evern been warned by a user? If so, what did you do?

I've been warned before and promptly corrected myself. I don't want to do anything to hurt the community here on Steemit, because it really is a uniquly high-quality social media.

Follow me @shayne