Paraphrasing: Is It Plargiarism?

We have a situation that is very interesting. It brings up some good points that I think worthy of discussion and like the feedback from the community.

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There was a post put up by @xplosive called Axie Infinity - The most popular blockchain game of the year (2021). If you check it out, it is really a very good post, full of information. It is also a great one to have for SEO purposes. We know Axie Infinity is huge.

The question is where this is an original post or not.

It is a point that was brought up by @pusen. Here is a comment that was left.

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This looks very similar to a post on Coinmarketcap called "What is Axie Infinity?".

Obviously, this article was used as a template for the one the author wrote on here. In fact, that is admitted in the comment section. The word used is "paraphrasing".

You can read through the comments on there to see how the conversation went. It is rather detailed and brings up some good points.

@puse downvoted the article. We cannot know the exact reason for this although insight given through the commenting.

Here we have a two-fold situation:

  • Is this plagiarism?

  • Is this worthy of being upvoted?

Both are two different levels of activity. Here I will give my views and would love to see what everyone's views are.

Is This Plagiarism

The conversation centered around taking one's work and passing it off as one's own. Did that occur in this instance?

Obviously, we do not see any links crediting any part of the article from Coinmarketcap. The format was near identical with just the wording in each section changed. To the author's credit, it was more than just a word here or there.

However, that does not absolve the issue of taking this piece and trying to pass it off as one's own. On the plagiarism scale, I would say this is low since it wasn't an outright copy/paste. There was some effort made and a bit of time was spent.

Is This Worthy Of An Upvote?

This is one where I was tempted. To me, this is a great article, worthy of being on the front page of Leofinance. Unfortunately, after reading through the comments, it didn't sit well with me.

@pusen did so out of two possible reasons. The first is obviously if the feeling of plagiarism is there, then that is worthy of a downvote. Another is simply a disagreement of rewards. This is the situation I found myself in.

While I wouldn't necessarily downvote it, I can see where the disagreement over rewards is there. Does a "paraphrased" article to this degree deserve rewards? Does it merit people giving it upvotes?

As you can see from the article, I did not upvote it as much as I thought it would be good for the front page of Leo.

A Bit More Effort

Naturally, we all look to other sources to generate ideas. There is a lot going on and we cannot stay on top of it all. So we read the works of others and turn them into our own posts.

This cannot be avoided. Others will simply be more knowledgeable than us on certain topics. So we take their ideas and incorporate them into what we are doing.

In this instance, sometimes citing is best, other times not. Here is an instance where @acesontop decided to cite me for some information about this subject in his "The Brave New World", A Metaverse I'll Definitely Skip.

To me, this wasn't necessary but I do appreciate the mention. Also, nothing in this post was remotely following anything I wrote in terms of structure or content.

That said, the original article discussed here was a missed opportunity. The thought was there but just a bit more work was required. Taking something as the basis for an outline if fine as long as one works away from it. In this situation, a few of the topic headers could have been changed, one or two more added, and a different format used. The content of the information is general since it is all applicable to Axie Infinity.

If that was done, perhaps it would have been sent to the front page of Leofinance.

Those are my thoughts. What does everyone else think? There are two issues at hand that we might want to answer:

  • Is this plagiarism?

  • Is this worthy of being upvoted?

Let us know in the comments below.


If you found this article informative, please give an upvote and rehive.

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