We use the Answer Plagiarism queue to proactively remove content that has been plagiarised. The answers enqueued are those that we think have copied from an external source (business website, blog, etc.) or another Quora answer without attributing the source properly.
The Answer Plagiarism queue contains answers that have been enqueued by our engineering team. Snippets of text suspected of plagiarism are highlighted in red the queue. Also present is a URL to the page where we think the content has been copied from. Decisions you make in the queue delete the answer.
Answers will appear one at a time. You will see the question, answer, the copied text highlighted in red, and a link to the URL from where the content has been copied from:
Take the following steps in chronological order to check for plagiarism in the queue:
STEP 1: Check to see if the highlighted text matches content in Quora-provided external link exactly:
If no, answer has not been plagiarised
If yes, move on to STEP 2
STEP 2: Compare the date answer was posted to the date the content in external site was posted
If Quora answer was posted at the exact same time or before content in external site was posted, then answer has not been plagiarised
If there is no date of posting in external site, then (for our purposes) the answer has not been plagiarised
The only exception is when the external site has been linked in the Quora answer. We can then deduce that the answer was written on the content of the external site.
If Quora answer was posted after content in external site was posted, then move on to STEP 3
STEP 3: Compare Quora answer authorship to external content authorship
If authors are the same, label as OK if the answer:
Does not violate our spam policy
If authors are different, flag as Plagiarism if user did not provide any attribution and the copied text is not clearly formatted
If authorship is unclear (i.e., you cannot determine if the author of the answer and that of the external source are the same person), flag the answer as Plagiarism if the content has not been attributed correctly and copied text is not clearly formatted
This typically happens when users go by a different identity on another website (e.g., steempunk, darth_vader). We want our plagiarism guidelines to take into account the different ways in which people post the same content on the internet.
What do I do if there are no highlights but the answer has been reported for plagiarism?
Copy-paste a snippet of the answer into Google and look for any external sites from which the content has been copied. When you find one, follow steps 2 and 3.
What if I copy-paste a snippet into Google and find that there exists a Quora answer which is an exact match?
There is no problem if the answer has proper attribution. However, if it doesn’t have proper attribution then use the following rules to make a decision:
[Same authors, no attribution] Flag as Spam only if the answer is promotional according to our criteria and when both spam and plagiarism labels are in the queue
This means that the user is copy-pasting the same answer into different question pages in order to make money.
We no longer penalize users who have copy-pasted non-spam, non-promotional answers into multiple question pages. We think that these users may not be aware of our plagiarism guidelines and we want to give them the benefit of doubt.
These users don't even have to provide any attribution or special formatting to indicate that the text has been copied.
[Different authors, no attribution] Flag as plagiarism if the Quora answer you are reviewing was written after the Quora answer you found upon Googling.
[Unclear authorship, no attribution] Flag as plagiarism if the Quora answer you are reviewing was written after the Quora answer you found upon Googling.
This typically happens with one of both of the answers you are comparing have been written anonymously.
If an answer is not plagiarised, should I label it as OK?
You should still check if the answer violates any other policies for which there are labels in the queue and then label appropriately.
Is there a reason I should follow the steps you’ve outlined in the exact chronological order?
Yes! Following these steps in chronological order will help save time by eliminating answers until you find and label ones that are plagiarised. Sticking to this process also means that you don’t have to use precious mental bandwidth to hold all the complicated plagiarism rules in your head; you can now focus on correctly identifying plagiarised content on Quora. This will also help you achieve and maintain accuracy targets.