A Follow-Up on Post Curation for Copied & Sourced Content in the FreeCompliments Community

Several days ago, we addressed our community on an important topic: how to address posts which copy and paste (with attribution) content from other sources. We permitted the entirety of the 7 day voting period to go through, and are results are rather clear cut.

We had three questions which we posed, as follows:

1. The first question: should we allow the aforementioned content (copied content with sources) to be posted in the FreeCompliments Community?

2. The second question: if we allow this content within the community, should we curate it (with minimal votes from our curation account and curation trail)?

3. The third question: if we curate the content, should we allow Hivewatchers to cancel out our votes?

Our Community’s Answers

The first answer was not unanimous, but the majority chose to allow this type of content to be posted (we differentiate this from curating the content). I am actually very happy about this because I believe that not permitting this content to be posted at all would be a very direct form of censorship.

The second answer was also not unanimous, but had a larger percentage of agreement. The majority chose to not have us curate such content. Especially since we have a working curation trail, I think it’s pertinent that we respect the choice of the people on this trail. I also believe this solves some potential legal issues, including questionable legality of monetizing content that was sourced but without clear-cut, written permission from the original author. We were not out to trailblaze the law here lol!

The third answer was unanimous. The community does not want Hivewatchers (@hivewatcher and/or @hivewatchers) to cancel out their votes. I personally agree with this decision. I do, however, believe that they can still play the vital role of identifying bad actors and pointing them out to us so that we can address the issue as a community. This is important work and we definitely want people to bring out their best selves here, rather than their worst.

I was made aware that there is a blacklist that’s typically provided to communities, but we did not yet receive this from Hivewatchers. Having this available would be quite useful to us so that we can watch out for dishonest activity ourselves.

Updated Curation Policy

Based on our community’s choices, we will no longer be curating posts which only copy and paste content (even if sourced) without adding some original content, and will also not award HSBI. We will still allow the content to be posted.

Given the fact that our curation often comes a few hours after the posts are made, I believe this permits the concept of “freedom of speech” without altering “freedom of reach.” Votes can often be used as a way to boost the content’s placement on different platforms, but since ours normally come within 1-23 hours, the reach is not affected whether or not we curate it.

Alternative Options

I do still believe that resharing content can be useful on a broader social media level. There is some level of inherent value which should prompt this activity to some degree, as long as it’s not spammed.

Possible solutions include curation with 2nd layer tokens (LEO, NEOX, CTP, etc.) for posts. Rewarding Ecency promotions (1 or 2 days) to this content is another option. Alternatively, suggesting that the content be reshared via microblogging (through Threads or Decks) may be a more acceptable route.

Keep in mind that each of these options still present an opportunity for earnings to be made on the content, and may enhance the reach of shared information. Of note, 2nd layer token awards can be converted to Hive.

With this information in mind, I’d like to here out the community’s thoughts on these alternative methods of working with such content. If none of these gel with the community, and we collectively choose to ignore all rewards, then we can instead do what we do best: simply leave a compliment to the author. :)

Conclusion

We have updated our curation policy regarding how we’re going to deal with posts that copy and paste content with attribution to the author. We’ll permit the content to be posted, but not curate it, and would prefer to not have outside actors reverse any curation we do provide. We’re also offering alternative options for how to work with such content, and would appreciate your thoughts on this as well!

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Disclaimer: FreeCompliments will be a beneficiary for this post, and I will attempt to boost it via Ecency points as well.

Here’s a permanent invite link to the FreeCompliments Discord!

Follow our curation trail and earn 1 HSBI per month!

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