A Gist of Cheetah, Steem-cleaners and Plagiarism Battle Guide for Newbies

Oh no! I got a message from cheetah.
What the ..... I didn't do anything!

In the previous post about New to Steemit? Here's A Mini Survival Guide for You we tackled some basic stuff about posting, image alignment and markdowns.

Now you created your awesome post on this site and hoping that everyone will read and notice it. However, a bot upvoted and replied on your post named @cheetah how will you feel?

• Will you be happy because you got an upvote.

• Will you be quite upset because this message is telling me that my post/ a part of your post can be found elsewhere.

• Or lastly will you wonder why you get that and research what is going on.

For me, the best answer will be the third one. I myself haven't received a comment from cheetah and I do not wish to have one but for sure all of us doesn't want to see him on our blog.

As I have noticed the majority of folks especially newbies are in panic whenever they receive a message from this bot and I can understand that. This bot has a bad reputation for some "real offenders" but a great reputation to the community and later I will discuss it further.

FIRST LET'S DISCUSS WHAT IS CHEETAH

Image Source( Pixabay Link)

As I understood on the explanation on the FAQ's what is Cheetah

• This is a bot developed by @anyx (one of the witness here on steemit) that is checking the post if the content is a copy/paste.
• This bot will not flag your post, however, it will notify your future readers that it found a similar post on the internet.
• If by any chance the content creator is a serious offender like a true plagiarist or identity thief the account will be added in the "blacklist" and each time that this person will be creating a post he/she will receive a flag from cheetah.

From the standpoint of a normal reader, if I will be seeing that comment from a post definitely I will be thinking that he/she just copied that post on that site and then post it here on steemit for the rewards.

Imagine you an honest person spent hours of researching, sometimes taking pictures, writing a post here to share "All original" and you saw a post that is copied elsewhere both of you are earning the same amount of upvotes. Do you think that it is fair? For me, it is not.

Now we have some basic understanding of what cheetah is let's discuss some misconceptions about this bot.

1. Cheetah is a bot that detects plagiarism
   • It can only determine that a certain post can be found on the internet no more no less.
2. I will lose money because cheetah left a comment on my post
   • This is purely upon the discretion of your readers if they will upvote your post or not. Take the message as it is, she found a similar content. (For me the delivery part is really positive it doesn't accuse the author that he copy/paste the article or image elsewhere, in fact, he is recommending there is a similar post that your reader might be interested in reading! Plus you have an upvote yey!)
3. Cheetah is a perfect bot that detects copy/paste works
   • Unfortunately she is not, she is still in progress and if ever that you got an error comment from her you can reach out to her creator.

There's a lot of information about this bot and I would strongly suggest that you try at least 15 minutes of your time to check and review the FAQ about Cheetah

STEEMCLEANERS

Aside from the bot, we also have a group of concerned individuals fighting the abuse here on the site abuse like copy/paste, spamming, identity theft and scamming and they are called @steemcleaners.

This is also led by @anyx together with the folks care about making the site somehow free from that stuff.

Their main task is to find a post that is found guilty in the Abuse Guide.

Contributors are growing in numbers here in steemit and not all are here posting good or quality content some are here just to get the rewards from the site. And that is what they are trying to stop. Here are some scenarios that are being monitored by the steem cleaners.

• Robotic Responses like "Great post! I follow please follow me back" "Good job! very informative article" "Nice post... Thank for sharing information"

You might think that it is a safe comment but in reality, it is not. I can honestly say that majority of the ones who posted this comment is just commenting for the sake of commenting. A good comment adds more value to the post it engages the author to respond back genuinely to its readers. And sometimes if you will be checking the account of the person who replied you will see that he is posting the same very comment that he posted on the other blog post several times. Which you may think is he some kind of a robot?

• People who are using incorrect tags in their post

You may say that these folks are kinda strict on this one. Definitely yes! So here's a why you should consider using the tags. Tags are simply your way to know your future readers that your post belongs to that group. Like being categorized by having said that readers sharing the same ideas and interest will be checking in your post. However, if you will be using the trending tag without your post being connected to it, some folks will think that you did that for the sake of exposure no more no less

Let's use the image above as a reference. Some folks want to save money and saw that there is a bargain sign sale up to N percent so since you want to save money definitely you will check on that.

But after checking it you found out that this is just for a publicity effort and you will need to do something to get that discount like you need to buy more etc. As someone who is low on a budget hoping that you will get a "steal" on the product, you will walk away disheartened. Same as the folks who are trying to build honest and real connections here on steemit.

Let's use a popular tag #philippines so since you are new you check on that and try to connect with other folks, however, you saw a post which doesn't connect to the #philippines tag. It is not in Filipino, it doesn't talk about the Philippines, as in NO CONNECTION at all what will you feel?

• Lastly we have ALL FORMS OF PLAGIARISM

Simply plagiarism is taking others work, may it be an image, video, or even blog post and taking them as your own. Not citing a reference is counted as plagiarism. Taking an image from google without asking permission from the owner is plagiarism ( I am guilty on this as I write this post because I did that in the past).Posting a trending news article from other sites and then sharing it to steemit is counted as plagiarism (If you are not the author). There's a lot of things that we do on social media and now you will be wondering if that is plagiarism or not. Steemit rewards authors on their original contribution to the community and not a work that is copied elsewhere

So having said that how can we avoid being tagged by @cheetah and @steem-cleaners?

• Do not ever copy/paste a work from the internet. If possible "paraphrase" the idea and make it as your own. Add your insights. As my teacher told me, copying from one source is plagiarism but copying from a lot of resources is called "research". But please do not do that, just create your own as much as possible.

• Cite your reference/ source accordingly if the post comes from the internet please include the link where you got the information even if it is a work being paraphrased. By citing the source you are giving the original author a chance to have more views from his creation because if your readers will like what you have posted chances are they will make additional research and stuff.

• Do not post anything without the consent of the original creator. I'd remember posting a work of my younger brother here in steemit @kaxukin and he told me that I should not do it because I don't have any consent coming from him and his works are bound by copyrights. Even though your intentions are good still we need to follow the rules set in the community.

• If you are using images from the internet if possible use images from royalty free sites like pexels.com and pixabay.com because they are tagged as creative commons and there's no need for attribution.

• If you feel that @cheetah replied to your post and you feel that it is incorrect you can respond to that and explain your case.

Stopping the offenders is a collective effort from the community and you as a reader can help make steemit.com a place wherein we have few or 0 people who are doing the abuse mentioned above.

How to do it? Very simple you can just fill out the Abuse report form from the steemcleaners.org site complete the details and you are good to go. Aside from that, they are giving some rewards to the folks who are helping on their cause.

I got one the last time when I reported a post from a person who just copied a trending post and created a new one.

You may think that it is a small amount but that is okay a reward is a reward.

That is all for me today, I do hope that somehow you are able to grasp some information about @cheetah and @steem-cleaners and hopefully you will be joining their cause.

For additional information you may check the following links:
https://steemit.com/steemitabuse/@cheetah/cheetah-bot-explained
https://steemit.com/steemit/@cheetah/faq-about-cheetah
https://steemit.com/steemcleaners/@steemcleaners/cheetah-how-to-appeal
https://steemit.com/steemit/@anyx/cheetah-bot-the-fight-against-spam-and-plagiarism-continues

Also if you believe in the cause of the owner of @anyx kindly vote him as a witness to show him support too right now he is ranked # 8 in the witness category

As a part of @promo-mentors our goal is to help you succeed on your steemit journey and this is my little way to help you out on that. If you find value in this post kindly resteem this post to share awareness to all.

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