Quote from: morvillz7z on December 21, 2018, 03:39:40 PM

Quote from: hilariousetc on December 21, 2018, 01:49:26 PM

I think there are several levels of severity in plagiarism and not all are equal and in some cases a permanent ban forever can be a little harsh (especially if it was just one silly mistake)

How do we determine it's a single case of a copy and paste? Let's say user X has 5000 posts and he is caught and reported for just 1. How do we know that there are no other plagiarized posts? Who will audit these many messages and prove that it's "just one silly mistake"? Note that different plag. checkers give different results. What you get with plagium and seotools may differ from a quick custom google search. Then there are the spinning tools which are very hard to catch, let alone many other ways to fool detection.

It's probably not possible to determine how many they have in fact copied, but you can usually tell between the serial plagiarisers and the ones who have done it once or twice. Either way, they can still all be treated the same: One copy and paste = one signature ban. Either earn the merit or pay the fee or whatever.

Quote from: morvillz7z on December 21, 2018, 03:39:40 PM

I can't believe that there are five people who voted "Pay some sort of fine". That is some bullshit!

It's not that bad. For anyone who has fallen foul of being banned for a silly one-time mistake I'm sure they'd happily pay the price. It's a small price to pay instead of being banished for life.

Quote from: mu_enrico on December 21, 2018, 04:32:54 PM

But who will determine whether a person deserves a permanent ban or not? Staff? DT member?

Probably staff, just like they do with current bans.

Quote from: S_Therapist on December 21, 2018, 05:00:49 PM

As LoyceV said, merit can be received through abuse and it can't be a solution (Although I have voted for that option too before reading the discussion). I think the current rule should be continued since copy/paste is really a bad practice.

It's going to be very hard to abuse 100+ merit without being spotted. If there's any shenanigans going on they can either be just banned or left negative feedback (which is as good as a sig ban in most cases).

Quote from: The Pharmacist on December 21, 2018, 05:27:44 PM

Quote from: hilariousetc on December 21, 2018, 01:49:26 PM

I think there's a big difference in someone quoting something from Wikipedia to answer someone's question, and those that purposefully copy someone else's post here or 'text-spin' it just to earn from signatures

If the member isn't citing Wikipedia as the source, then I don't see any difference at all between those two cases. I've seen a lot of cases where people are copying stuff from all over the internet in order to answer questions and passing it off as their own original answer. That's plagiarism.

It's still technically plagiarism but it's hardly a capital offence that deserves a death sentence. Sometimes it's just down to naivety more than being malicious. Imagine if you've made years worth of contributions without a single copy and paste, and then someone asks a question and you help them out by getting the answer from Wikipedia or somewhere else but don't properly attributive it. This is a web forum not a test for a degree in English Language and people don't expect to be banned for such a thing. This probably wouldn't get you a ban on any other forum but this board is obviously unique in that there's a real issue with plagiarism due to signature campaigns and hence why it's treated so harshly, but not all copy and pasters are the same. We really need more awareness of the rules and that's why they should be told about them upon sign up or have reminders. Hoping that new users just randomly stumble upon the long and complicated list of rules in Meta really isn't enough.

Quote from: The Pharmacist on December 21, 2018, 05:27:44 PM

The text spinning stuff is more devious, but we're talking about the difference between a criminal who leaves his fingerprints all over the doorknob vs. one that tries to clean up the crime scene--the offense is the same.

I'd say it's more like giving the death sentence to both a murderer and someone who goes 1 mile over the speed limit. Both are crimes but don't deserve the same punishment. However, I have no sympathy for the people who text spin and maybe they shouldn't be given another chance, but then again I wouldn't be against them be able to get their account back if they prove they're here to contribute and earning a ridiculous amount of merit might be a good enough penance for that.

Quote from: The Pharmacist on December 21, 2018, 05:27:44 PM

I don't think there's a problem with the way things are now, except that not all plagiarizers are created equal and there are two that I know of that I wish had gotten some leniency--but I also understand how important it is to be consistent with rule enforcement.

Well that's the problem right there. There really is quite a big difference between a one-time offence and someone who's only here to copy and paste but at the moment everyone is treated the same, but I also want there to be some consistency because we can't be giving special favours to certain people whilst others are banished for life.

Quote from: The Pharmacist on December 21, 2018, 05:27:44 PM

Hilariousandco, you know that when people get permabanned, they go right back to doing it with a new account.

Then what does it matter if they're still going to be here? Doesn't make a difference either way.

Quote from: The Pharmacist on December 21, 2018, 05:27:44 PM

Hell, you've even suggested it a few times and I've begged you not to give that kind of example to people. So I don't think a signature restriction would work at all--they'll just abandon the account. The merit solution has problems, too, unless it's a very high amount. We know merit gets traded and sold.

Newbies might abandon their account but what about Senior or Heroes? It's incredibly difficult to achieve those ranks now so most aren't just going to do a drake and start from the bottom, but if they are then again, it doesn't matter because they're still here just under a different name.