Re: In support of downvoting plagiarism

[eric256]

I don't think there is any real way you could tell if it is an intentional dup or an unintentional one. I, for one, often load up RAT in the morning and open tabs on all the interesting questions. Sometimes i get distracted and its hours later before I finish a reply. At that point I have the option of posting and seeing if someone else came up with the same way (often as pleasing as having your very own way) or I could open a new tab on the discussion and see if someone has already replied. More often I choose the former because it is eaiser, more fun, and generaly does no harm. The second is harder and adds no value. Your idea would be to downvote me for what? For delaying before answering? Seems rediculous to me.

[anonymized user 468275]

Fair point. I anticipated this when I suggested a time limit in the OP as part of the consideration, although you are simply saying that for you it should be a day rather than two hours - but this is not such a big difference from a conceptual point of view. On the other hand a voting guideline on this would also encourage people to check whether they were duplicating something - what it really comes down is what your attitude is when weighing up a) the bother of having to check before posting as an honest punter versus b) how much if at all you care about deliberate plagiarism.

[eric256]

Since I haven't seen any rash of delierate plagiarism I have no concern about it. So I see no value in bothering to double check before posting an honest answer. I also think the community needs very little help by way of "voting guidlines" to discourage such plagiarism. If there was a rampant problem with it, I am sure it would be dealt with in a manner that the community finds appropriate. I think your post would have been better as a CB discusion on the issue, possibly directed at the actual incident that prompted you.

BTW Making a guildline so complex will only server to keep people from actualy reading it. Something like 'Some members also choose to downvote what appears to be plagiarism. Feel free to do so yourself but remember that what at first looks like plagiarism might actualy be an honest post so be careful.' would probably server better, but I think even that is unneeded. Your post met with dislike because it encouraged downvoting (which is seldom encouraged) and you assume guilt in some sense rather than innocence. Plagiarism is always a judgement call and there is no hard and fast way to identify it. Any attempt will result in false positives which are more harmfull than letting a few plagiarized posts squeeze through. If by chance you downvote an honest person on their first post you could concievable do great harm, where downvoting true plagiarism will seldom result in any effect for either good or bad, IMHO.