The MadTheory Guide to Exposing Epinions Plagiarists
Jul 19 '01
The Bottom Line Chop the thumbs off thieves.
Prior to finding Epinions, I spent most of my time on the Internet at Shockwave.com playing Tetris and doing Jigsaw puzzles. While these diversions were certainly entertaining me between taking mind-numbingly aggravating Tech Support calls (“It says ‘click here to finish.’ What do I do now?”) they are nowhere near the addictive experience that I’m having here at Epinions. I still can’t believe that my Supervisor referred me here. What did you think I could work and write opinions at the same time?
With Epinions I’ve found a place where I can have fun writing and join a community that appreciates writing as well. However, lately, I’ve noticed plague infesting our nice little village. It’s a plague of trolls. They hide in darkness, crouching under the bridges and in the gutters of Epinionstown, waiting to snatch the babies of the villagers to claim them as their own. They’re plagiarists. They have no mercy, no remorse, and no principles.
These abusers are a definite drain to Epinions’ limited resources. It seems as if Epinions is unwilling or unable to stop them, as they continue to leech off Epinions’ venture capital and revenue. Some members have even hypothesized that these and other abusers will cost Epinions its very existence. I really do enjoy the time I get to spend here, so if I have to lose my site to these losers, I’m going down swinging. So as a service to both old and newer Epinionators, I’m offering this definitive to exposing and eliminating this plague from this site.
Telltale Signs of Plagiarism
Fortunately for us, plagiarists usually aren’t very bright. Otherwise they would actually write their own reviews instead of stealing them from other writers. Either that or realize they could actually make more money working a real job rather than infesting Epinions. As a result of their intellectual deficiency, they tend to leave not-so-subtle clues as to their shady tactics whenever they post anywhere on the web. The following are just a few most obvious signs of an Epinions plagiarizer.
1. Multiple well written postings in a short time period.
Generally speaking, for most folks, producing well-written original pieces takes time. When you see a user post several reviews over a short period of time (hours or days depending on the volume of work), it’s a hint that a large percentage of that work has been plagiarized.
2. Extreme variations in writing styles.
It’s true that one reason most of us come here is to improve our writing skills, so naturally there will be a degree of variation between the reviews of the Epinionators who have yet to discover a distinct style. However, when the only consistency between reviews is the large degree of fluctuation in the writing style, see it as a red flag indicating that this review might be plagiarized.
3. Completely off-topic.
Plagiarists are sometimes so eager to paste their stolen reviews that they just slap it under any old category here in Epinions. They don’t care that it’s in the wrong category because they don’t care about the review anyway; they only care about those few pennies it generates. The next time you see a review for a Sony Camcorder placed under General Comments About Epinions, Spockishly raise an eyebrow and say, “highly illogical”. Especially since they’re apparently too stupid to know that the site doesn’t pay for those editorials anymore.
4. Odd References
Sometimes with straight cut & paste jobs, you’ll see a reference to a person or a link that has absolutely nothing to do with Epinions. . It’s rare that abusers read the entire review that they’re stealing. Usually they just read a paragraph or two to make sure that the review is sufficient, then proceed with the heist. Sometimes, you’ll read a reference to something or someone that has absolutely nothing to do with the product or this site, or you’ll see a link like, “Click here to go to the artist’s homepage” and you know darn skippy that we can’t have active links in our reviews.
5. Blank Profile Pages
Nothing says, “hi, I’m a plagiarist” quite like a reviewer with an insane number of reviews having a blank profile page. Most Epinions members value the profile page as a tool to help the reader learn something about them and encourage the reader to read more of the member’s work. A blank profile page usually implies that to this Epinionator, community is irrelevant; only quick hits count.
6. Trust Slutting
When a member adds a large amount of people to their Web of Trust very quickly, it’s usually because they are hoping that those members will reciprocate and read a few of the reviews of the trust slut. The theory behind this technique is that if enough members read the plagiarized reviews of the trust slut quickly enough, he/she can accumulate enough money to cash out of before Epinions Abuse or any of the members have a chance to react. Be on alert when you see a trust slut.
Resources for Determining if a Piece is Plagiarized
Actually catching the plagiarizer here at Epinions is pretty difficult if you don’t know how to go about it. Fortunately we have some excellent resources at our disposal to help us find out if a piece has been plagiarized.
1. Google.com – This is easily one of my favorite search engines on the web. It’s quick, powerful and usually returns the information I want, or at the very least, info that’s in some way related to my inquiry. So how do you use Google.com to catch a plagiarizer? Easy. Just copy some sentences from the review in question into Google’s search box and see what it returns. Depending on whether or not the plagiarizer altered the work in any way, you may have to try several sentences in order to find the original copy. Start with sentences that sound unique like, “I’d rather listen to my grandfather playing the spoons on his knee with Nana accompanying him on the banjo than hear this CD again.” That unique wording structure will stand out more and make the original review easier for Google to locate.
2. FindSame.com – This site is ideal for nailing Internet plagiarists, because it searches for content instead of keywords. It allows you to enter a great deal of text or the actual URL for the piece you suspect is plagiarized. The site is a little slow, but the results are definitely worth the wait.
3. Epinions itself – Many times, the plagiarists just copy the reviews of other Epinionators without changing the Title, Pros, Cons, Bottom Lines, and the first sentence of the piece. So if you ever suspect that an abuser has stolen an Epinions member’s review, simply scroll through the product category and look for similarities in the aforementioned elements. If you find a match, it’s been jacked.
What Now?
OK. So you’ve found someone here who has jacked another writer for his or her reviews. What do you do now? There are actually some pretty basic steps to take.
1. NH the review and leave a comment with a link to the plagiarized piece. – This step is extremely important. When other users see that NH on what looks to be a well-written, informative piece, they’ll check the Comments section to see if the rater left an explanation for the poor rating. Upon seeing that the abuser in question is plagiarizing reviews, the majority of responsible users at this site will investigate the link, NH the review, then hopefully add the abuser to their Block list.
2. Notify Epinions Abuse. – It’s gotten so bad that I just recently added the ‘Notify Epinions Abuse’ page to my Favorites. The Epinions Abuse crew is obviously understaffed, but they do actually keep up with their job. Abusers I’ve Blocked regularly disappear from my Block List due to Epinions kicking these people off the site. Don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t happen immediately.
3. Send a short email to Epinions members who have unwittingly given the review a higher rating. – It’s often that you see a review with several SHs or NHs and a few VHs. Yes, sometimes those higher ratings belong to the blind rubberstampers, but it’s just as likely that they belong to upstanding members of the Epinions community who just didn’t check to make sure the review was original. If you suspect this is the case with a plagiarized review, simply drop the member a short email about the situation. Most likely they will check the links and change their ratings if necessary. Some members will even send additional emails to Epinions to give the Abuse staff more incentive to expedite the matter.
4. Walk away. – Don’t hound, stalk, Spam, or write about the user. Leave it alone and let matters run their course. Turning Epinions and any of its unofficial clubs into heated flame wars tend to rip apart what little community we have left here. Either it will get resolved or it won’t.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I’m not going to be a Plagiarism Policeman, and I’m not asking you to be either. Just go normally about your Epinionating (yes, I made it up and I don’t care) and if you see something that looks funny, check it out. I certainly will. If we each do a little bit of house cleaning, it will hopefully translate into more Income Share for me…err…us, I mean. Happy hunting.
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Optional Reading Templates:
I know some of this has been done to death, so I was looking for an original angle to use to write this, but I got sleepy. If you found that this was too straightforward, here are some of the angles I was exploring. Feel free to pretend I wrote this using these different slants:
How to Catch an Epinions Rat – Using a rat as a metaphor for the plagiarizer, I describe how to catch the rat and dispose of it. This one was going to have you laughing so much that you would have to check your pants for leakage. Then you would keep laughing.
Trolls Under the Bridge at Epinions Castle – Extending the “Trolls” metaphor used in the intro throughout the piece using Medieval aesthetics like castles, wizards, & stuff. In this one would have wowed you with my shining portrayal of various members of Epinions as mystical knights of Arthurian legend.
Getting “Xeno” on Epinions Plagiarizers – I get ruthless like one of my favorite Epinionators, Xeno3998*, start calling out names of specific Plagiarizers I caught, and how I caught their punk a**es using the aforementioned techniques. This would have fun ‘cause I would have gotten to use all that wonderful profanity. =)
*Just having fun with you Xeno. Please don’t retaliate, as I would crumble like a stale oatmeal cookie under the weight of your awesomeness and sheer elemental fury of your Taq.
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Epinions.com ID:
madtheory
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 - Top 100 |
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Location: Dallas,TX
Reviews written: 487
Trusted by: 591 members
About Me:
DON'T CALL IT A COMEB... wait. I guess you actually can call it a comeback.
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