Ask An Ambassador: Don't Go To Active Rain Jail
Liz and Bill provide excellent information regarding some bad behavior among a few ActiveRain members. Fortunately, most members are A+, but sadly there are those who behave badly by high jacking others well written posts.
These are the ones we all want to avoid, as they are either too lazy, or do not know how to write good posts themselves. They should go to ActiveRain University to learn the right way to post. It is never okay to copy someone others posts.
Ask An Ambassador: Don't Go To Active Rain Jail
If you want to incur the ire of the Active Rain community, there's probably no quicker way than to be perceived as a cheater. As a whole, we can tolerate someone acting like the exit end of a horse MUCH easier than a cheater.
Of course, #1 with a bullet on the list of cheating as far as the community is concerned? We don't even need the Final Jeopardy music for this one, it's plagiarism. You copy/paste material that is not yours, and make no attempt to point out that it is NOT your original (or paid for) content and you're going to lose any AR friends you might have had. Burning torches, pitchforks, hot tar, feathers....get the picture? Don't be THAT guy or gal!!
Along the same lines is heisting photos. If you didn't take them, acquire them from an authorized source (and Google Images is NOT an authorized source unless you use copyright free images), or gain permission to use someone else's product, you can't use them!
Now there are other community rules violations that can get you in hot water in a hurry: creating a fake profile is one way, spamming the AR community, name calling, etc. Frankly everything we've listed SHOULD be common sense not to do, but some do try.
So what should you do if you encounter any of this? You've got three choices:
- Do nothing. Maybe someone else will make them fix it. (This is our LEAST favorite option....ignoring an issue is the same as condoning)
- Contact them (off-line is probably best) and point out the issue. If an honest mistake they SHOULD correct it. If they don't, then go to choice 3.
- Email support@activerain.com with a link to the problem.
Does Active Rain care about addressing these items? You bet! But they do need our help, because expecting the AR Staff to monitor every post and every comment is obviously not realistic.
Here's a direct quote from Kerrie regarding a recent plagiarized post:
"Sometimes a moderator makes a mistake. It is a mistake and quickly made right as soon as Bob or I am made aware of it. When I say "made right" I mean it is unfeatured, points removed and the member is given a stern warning of his/her violation. We notate the accounts to see if they've been reprimanded before. Usually we give the benefit of the doubt, maybe they didn't know or are new to the blogging world. A second violation can result in suspension and possible termination if committed again after.It's not fair, it's wrong and I rely on you guys to bring those to our attention. If you see a copyrighted post, please email the link of the post and the original source to support@activerain.com. We can then dig deeper and let the member know of their violation.
I know you how long your original, thoughtful posts take, I know how much effort and time it is to get the content and layout right....I feel you."
Bottom line, break the rules at your own risk. Maybe you'll be like the speeder on the highway, you MAY get away with it for awhile, but sooner or later you're going to find the popcorn light machine behind you!
Keep on Blogging!
Liz and Bill aka BLiz
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