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I know something like this has asked before What to do about Copy Cat answers? But my question is slightly different.

What should we do when some user just copied the content from another answer from SO or from other web resources, and they never mention it?

After leaving some comment on the post they mention but again they forget to mention the original post while answering a question. What should we do in that cases?

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  • Depends. In the worst case, you flag and wait for it to burn. Do you have an example?
    – Mysticial
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 4:53
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    yes stackoverflow.com/questions/21167077/… this one and the user always doing this. Some other user has posted to include original attribute. But again he misses it.
    – user3110424
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 4:56
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    Oh. That's blatant plagiarism. Flag and burn.
    – Mysticial
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 4:59

2 Answers 2

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Good catch. And as always with plagiarizers, it's not the only copy & pasted answer.

If you feel like doing the work, you can go through the guy's profile and Google-test all his answers for plagiarism. Then flag each occurrence where you find plagiarism for moderator attention, and write "plagiarism: " and then the original URL.

Do this for each item separately, as moderators can't be expected to dig for more.

You can also add the same message as a comment, and/or nicely educate the author, but you don't have to.

Edit: OK, this guy is really sneaky. Mods, please stop him.

... and plenty more, pretty much every one of his contributions.

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  • I have just seen one example right now ;-) you know what i am talking about
    – user3110424
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 5:12
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    Yeah, and he knows exactly what he's doing.
    – Pekka
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 5:19
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    another one stackoverflow.com/questions/21158932/…
    – user3110424
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 5:23
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    His very first answer is copy pasta :/ (edit: it just vanished, now 10k only)
    – brasofilo
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 6:06
  • @brasofilo yeah, 95% of his stuff is. I've gone through pages 1-3 (ordered by votes), calling it a day now, if anybody else wants to go on there's plenty :)
    – Pekka
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 6:08
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    While Googling the other guy's stuff, I also came across this user: stackoverflow.com/users/1265724/ram-kiran who needs a close look
    – Pekka
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 6:10
  • @brasofilo i think his answer is removed from there..
    – user3110424
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 6:11
  • @user moderators will delete answers they confirm as plagiarism.
    – Pekka
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 6:12
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    @Pëkka, I think this comment is for you - it seems you're now known as Plagiarism stackoverflow.com/questions/21155030/…
    – PeterJ
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 6:14
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    @Plagiarism, plz stap!
    – brasofilo
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 6:15
  • @PeterJ that's actually a catchy name!
    – Pekka
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 6:19
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    @ALienArrays yeah. A mod has since nuked the questions I'd already flagged but I'll wait with the rest. He's suspended for plagiarism though, can he edit stuff in the meanwhile?
    – Pekka
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 15:44
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Flag it for moderator attention, and explain the problem using a custom flag.

In some cases, the moderators may already know about the problem. The SE software detects copy/paste posts, and raises an automatic moderator flag when it happens. But cast the flag anyway. It provides confirmation to the moderator that it is actually a problem.

Copying from other sites is a bit trickier. In some cases, Fair Use applies. But if it's clearly a case of blatant plagiarism, say so in the flag. Don't raise copyright issues in a moderator flag; mods are not empowered to do anything about copyright claims.

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  • Copying is fine at some extent but shouldn't we mention the original post.
    – user3110424
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 5:24
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    Generally, yes.
    – user102937
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 5:27
  • you can see what i mean in 1 hour so many flagged answer. and all are plagiarism
    – user3110424
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 5:29
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    @Alien: I just love it when people come up with new straw men to chew on.
    – user102937
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 7:30
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    @AlienArrays - There's a very large difference between reusing or building upon code and copying word-for-word sentences and paragraphs from other sources. The system doesn't automatically flag any of this, and we can distinguish between degrees of copying.
    – Brad Larson Mod
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 16:00

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