Cheetah Bot Explained.
[Image by Tambako on flickr. Labeled creative commons.]
To provide an overview of what the @cheetah bot is, and what it does and does not do on the site, I have created this post to hopefully give users an understanding when they click on her name after a comment.
Content Detection: What Cheetah Bot Does.
[Image by user @dmitlex with permission.]
If cheetah detects that an article may not be original content, it creates a comment that lets readers know that the article is likely elsewhere on the internet already. This comment is meant to be understood by the author that they should try and avoid copy pasting. It also informs readers of the article that there is a chance the author is not the original one, and have either copy-pasted or plagiarized.
Even if the submitter is the author, there is nothing wrong with the comment, it simply informs the reader that it is not unique (exclusive) content on Steemit. Voters can choose how to use this information.
What about reposts?
They can be, and are, called out. If you want to repost material on steemit it is your prerogative to do so, just as it is someones prerogative if they flag you for it. For cheetah, it is my choice to notify readers that the content is not original.
Content Detection: What Cheetah Bot Does NOT Do.
Cheetah bot does not detect all cases of plagiarism.
Users should still be vigilant with posts that look oddly similar to a news story, and if they find an original source to the article, I encourage you to write a comment, so others are notified that the content is not original. People who do this generally get upvoted and praised, and articles that plagiarize get flagged to oblivion.
Cheetah bot does not flag you.
That is, when it detects a potential source. This is because it is not perfect, and can't tell if the author is the same as is posting, and there is the odd occasion where the source isn't accurate. Feel free to report mistakes to the steemitabuse-classic channel in steemit.chat.
Why is copy-paste "bad"?
[Image source. Labeled creative commons.]
Steemit is not Reddit. Steemit is not Facebook. Steemit is a place where original content can, and should, be rewarded. If you feel like you are able to curate good news stories, I welcome you to do so, but I first invite you to understand the following property:
Reddit and Facebook allow you to link to an article, which incites discussion on it. You do not copy and paste an entire article onto Reddit, nor do you copy and paste an entire article into your status in Facebook. What happens instead, is people create a link, then discuss it.
Be the discussion.
Tell us what you think of the article. Why is it important? Does it affect you? What will happen due to it? There are plenty of avenues for discussion. If the community rewards shit posts, that is all we will see in the future.
Secondly, copy paste hurts search engine optimization, which hurts our site. When articles have an original source, the original source is placed higher in ranking compared to steemit. When this happens too often, steemit will be considered a haven of plagiarism, and will be pushed off the rankings of searches (e.g. Google rank). This hurts us, as it means people will not naturally stumble upon steemit, and our user-base will not grow.
Thirdly, upvoting this low-effort content takes away shares of rewards from people who actually do deserve it, who are producing original content. [See this post.]
Fourth, plagiarism and identity theft are ILLEGAL. Do you want steemit, the company, to recieve DMCA notices? Do you want them to drown in legal fees? I hope not. Let's try and avoid that.
Finally...
CITE YOUR SOURCES OF RESEARCH.
and...
Did you take or make the photo? If not...
Is it copyright protected? -- DO NOT USE IT.
Allowed to use it? -- CITE THE SOURCE.
The Black List.
Oh dear... Welcome to the dark side of Cheetah.
[Image by danirave on deviantart. Labeled creative commons.]
What is the black list?
It is the place for repeat, unapologetic offenders of plagiarism, scams, spam, or identity theft. This also includes users who attempt to circumvent detection and plagiarize.
Cheetah will make a comment to warn readers that the person has been manually found guilty by a reputable member of our community to be continuously involved of one or more of the above categories. Cheetah may automatically flag you, especially if it is a spammer, so the content becomes less visible.
Is it possible to get off the black list?
Yes - when one makes an appeal (e.g. a post saying they understand) and has clear intent to stop plagiarizing or spamming. They should also join steemit.chat, and make their case in the steemitabuse-appeals channel. Identity thieves will never leave the abyss.
What if I see a post from cheetah saying a user has been blacklisted?
I won't tell you how to vote here. But remember that these users are only the worst of the offenders; so use your judgement by looking at their post history, or use your trust of the user who put them on the black list. I encourage you to be careful upvoting, at the very least.
The White List.
The friendlier side of Cheetah.
[Image by annemaria48 on deviantart. Labeled creative commons.]
In contrast to the black list, the white list is for members that have been accredited and found to be original authors of cross-posted materials.
Should you ask to be on the white list?
Probably not. It is NOT for people who have "verified". It is for people who are posting content in multiple locations at the same time. In addition, these users are ensuring that the other location in which the material is posted, also contains a cross-reference to the steemit article, just as the steemit article contains a link to the secondary location.
I will remove users from the whitelist who do not do this.
Who has Authorization to Control the Black and White Lists?
The only members who control the lists are myself (@anyx), and a few users whom are witnesses. I trust these individuals for two reasons:
- I know them.
- Their reputation as a witness makes them careful choosing whom to ban.
As I also am a backup witness, keeping reputation is important to me too, which makes me careful.
Don't forget, you can and should vote for witnesses here.
Attempting to Circumvent Detection.
Attacking Me.
[Image by arvalis on deviantart. Labeled creative commons.]
Flagging me or cheetah because you got caught, shows me your stance on plagiarism. So go ahead, join the ranks of people flagging @cheetah and @anyx all day long.
Good luck.
P.S. The hot algorithm is still broken, I am able to push my post to trend on hot with sybils.
Im posting articles with the link at the bottom and its saying im not... im getting annoyed?
This happened to me too. I posted with sources and it got all pissy at me. I've been wanting to write about this topic since I joined and its going to tell me I'm a cheater? Kinda lame considering I posted sources and only researched/quoted about 15% of the article.
Yes, had to adapt and make some changes. Im still in that process adjusting to the steemit way of things, be well & Steem on!!
I was doing the same thing smh
This is great insight into the bot so many of us fear. I look forward to more in the future.
To be fair, cheetah killed my spam comment bots well before the rep system was in place and my hat is off to @anyx
LOL that's a real nice rep you got there.
Really!
laughs :Dlol ty ty,
didnt come easy :)
I've watched @cheetah develop over the past few weeks and I have to say it's brilliant. @anyx is doing a great job in helping to keep the Steemit community honest, open, and above all else accountable. Since there are monetary rewards associated with providing valued content to the community, it's incredibly important that this content be original so as not to enable people to profit off the hard work - and intellectual property - of others.
What does @anyx do?
Although I'm on your side, I must ask: Is it truly right for you to do this? Doesn't this sort of thing manipulate the free market? Even if this isn't quite the same as a government police force going in and manipulating the market, it'd be just as bothersome if a fellow shopkeeper went to an opposing shop and threw the goods on the ground or something, just because they don't like what someone else is selling.
Is it truly right to use a bot to do this? I just want to start some discussion, so don't think I'm some plagiarism-fan.
~Kitten
Since the bot is taking no action other than providing information for the readers, yes, it's truly right for @anyx to do this.
It's the user that decides what action to take based on all of the information available.
I like this answer. Indeed, it is up to the voters to decide what they want, ultimately. Cheetah just helps the voter to have more information readily available.
Even though I agree to some level of content verification, @heretickitten has a point and it is not answered.
@hoopatang says: "Since the bot is taking no action other than providing information for the readers"...
Providing information is an action. And the very action of informing the user about possible (not certain) plagiarism is conditioning the users to be suspicious.
9 out 10 times, the cheetah-bot will be accurate. What happens to the 1 out of 10?
What is less harmful?
9 guilty men free
or
1 innocent man in jail?
the answer to that depends on the nature of the crime; if the "crime" is for drug use or the failure to pay a fine, it is obvious that Blackstone was right.
If the crime is of a mala in se and ongoing nature that will result in further damage to society, then by utilitarian measure it is better that 1 innocent man be jailed
example; a terror group plots a mass murder spree. if a raid on the group bags 9 terrorists and 1 man who is there by coincidence ( a relative perhaps), the lives saved by the raid are more "valuable" than the one life degraded by loss of freedom.
it would be nice if life were white and black and moral codes were easy to create and abide by.
so in the case of Steemit, you would have to make a judgement on how serious the damage caused by the 9 spammers versus the one innocent poster could be.
someone goes to jail?
I am changed my post. Now unbaned my account, please. I am a new member of 2/3 weeks only.
Actually I did not know cheetah report can not be shared for everyone's good.This is copyright issue.
Now I understand all, please unbaned me and give me a chance @onnesion.... !cheetah @cheetah.
Now what can i do?
Of course It is truly right. It doesn't manipulate the free market. It says: "Hey, better watch out, fake products over there!", so other buyers (upvoters) have choice to follow that advice or not. That's because of that freedom, not against it. Besides, I like cats. :-)
Usually the market works better when there is more information available to everybody.
This kind of information about content is public good so @cheetah is making a huge public service for the Steem community.
The bot is just making light of the fact that similar content resides elsewhere. It's not abusively interjecting opinion, it's informing readers of a possibly relevant fact.
wow
Seriously; the internet has needed a police force for a decade, every blog or website has a 'moderator' function. Next you will tell me there is something called the First Amendment in the American Constitution or something.
Free Speech is only for those who can enforce their rights to it...
Good Luck ;)
@anyx I like it when @cheetah gets it right.
But there are times when @cheetah gets it wrong. I consider flagging any bot which is making mistakes as the easiest and presently only way to contact the owner when his/her bot is acting up or running amok.
People can't be expected to track down the owner manually until we have some sort of bot registry. Also the owner will be checking their up and downvotes. So it just makes sense to use the reward system for bot training like this.
It's like training a pet. You reward them by giving them a treat when they do a neat trick, learn something useful and are acting good in generl. But you bop them on the nose with a rolled up newspaper when they misbehave ;)
Glad to see you're improving the content detection algorithms. Fewer missed instances of copyright violations but also fewer false positives as well. Great work!
You can just type @anyx or @cheetah or DM me in chat instead of flagging it. No sense harming cheetah's rep.
I agree with @williambanks that someone shouldn't have to track down the owner manually. But I would go farther and say that someone shouldn't have to check a 'bot registery' either. Maybe you should sign onto steemit.chat as @cheetah and monitor those messages for feedback. When Steemit supports private messages right on the platform this will be easier.
Thanks @smooth, I do actually have @cheetah in steemit.chat, and I monitor that as well. :)
Sometimes people use transfer memos too, but I agree a having direct messaging will be much more efficient.
@anyx I don't necessarily disagree. Might want to add a message if you haven't already that at least says who the owner is and how to contact you though. I mean obviously I know who you are. I based the decision to use upvotes and downvotes on cheetah on something you said in a previous post about the community would up or downvote her based on if she was doing a good job or not. However new people might not understand that.
Also we should probably refer to steemit.chat as www.steemit.chat to emphasize that this is a website. I have the hardest time because people say "I don't see a steemit chat anywhere in the menu!" (yes I know it's there, but people are blind)
Anyways a quick tag like that, and knowing that up/downvotes are not how you want me helping you train your bot would be enough to my mind.
Hey @cheetah, I was wondering if you would be open enough to share any of your bot logic? Specifically, how did you circumvent search query limits on content? My bot quickly hit the limit and I have only found premium solutions that charge per query. My current workaround is to only check low reputation users content, but even that will quickly hit the query limit.
@discombobulated, Cheetah bot isn't free. :)
#FreeCheetah!
@anyx As the saying goes, "Nothing good ever came cheap." LOL
#ITsEasyOnlyPersonal!
I am happy that this bot is in place. Good quality, original posts is the way to go! Thanks! UPVOTED and followed!
Thanks for your continued efforts to make steemit a better place @anyx and @cheetah. I remember a while back when you were thinking of shutting @cheetah down, I'm glad you haven't. While it's not perfect it is pointing out questionable materials. It's really not much effort to provide citations to sources everyone. Just add links!
x
Hi Cheetah I know that you are a bot but I thought to my self this is a good way to let your master AKA your creator know that as a 3D artist. When someone uses are work on the blogs or posts it is the same as if someone copy and past a post or blog that was not theirs. It is hard for me and many others like me to use words, writing,exe... to express the way we feel so we use art and when someone takes are work they have taken our words. Keep this in mind when you take others art work and blindly post and blog it. Now you know that art to me is the same as your words.
P.S My Art work is a port of my solo and mind.
Im not sure if anyones made an app or anything to track images back to there source but i sure wish i knew one. Shareing is careing xD it must be awesome to be everywhere!