Why I Support Zer0hedge Even Though He Steals Content And Is A Plagiarist!!!! Or Does He????steemCreated with Sketch.

in steemit •  2 years ago

Have you heard of this guy Zer0hedge? If you haven't head over to his blog on here @zer0hedge.

Evidently this guy is a cut/paste guy. For those of you who are unaware, there is a business/political blog called zerohedge (www.zerohedge.com). What the steemit zer0hedge (notice the difference in spelling, he uses a "0" instead of an "o") does is picks articles off that site, copies and pastes them over on steemit reaping himself a nice windfall.

This guy is the anti-thesis of original content. There is nothing in his posts that are remotely close to his own words. He simply steals the work of others, passes them off as his own, and profits from it. How can anyone in good conscious do that?

Actually he doesn't. Yes he copies it and he does profit from it, but he does not pass it off as his own. In fact, he is very open about disclaiming that he is the original author while posting a link in every post to www.zerohedge.com. In other words, he gives full credit to the site and the original content creator.

Evidently this has a couple people up in arms. They feel that zer0hedge is crossing the line by taking content and profiting from it. Perhaps he is. However, if that is the case, then most of this site are guilty of the same thing,

Have you ever linked a Youtube video on here? Did you give credit to the content creator? Notice I said content creator and not the person who posted the video. Youtube is known for having a ton of copyrighted material and refusing to take it down. How about those who posts MEMEs? Did all of you give credit to the ones who created them? Finally, how about those who put up an article with a couple words then putting up a link? Are they really creating original content?

So why do I support this guy? Simply because I like most of the content that he puts up. Sure I could go to www.zerohedge.com and read it but I prefer to stay on steemit. Is that laziness on my part? Quite possibly although I have incentive to be on here. If that site wants me to read on there, either they can post on steemit under their own name or get with @ned about developing a zerohedge SMT. That might get my attention.

The Internet is the most powerful copy machine ever invented. When you look at it, the very nature of the Internet is to reproduce. Even sending out an email, the most basic of functions on the net is, at a minimum, duplicated 3 times. When I send an email it ends up in my outbox, the other person's in box, and at least once in each person's email host (who knows how many times they mirror and back things up). My point is it is a medium where things are downloaded, uploaded, go viral, can be copy and pasted, and run through editing software and change into something different. Heck, with the blockchain, we are seeing things reproduced thousands of times. Download a wallet to some of these coins and see how long it takes to sync up.

So is zer0hedge a plagiarist since he takes material created by another and simply posts it? If he is, then so is every other person who grabs a youtube video and meme (which most of us have done). There is either a line in the sand or there is not...we are either stealing content or we aren't. To me, we should not arbitrarily single someone out based upon his pasting of a full article when other people are doing the same things albeit not as blatantly.

What do you say? Where is the line? Is a link specifying where the content came from enough? What if you dont know who or where the content came from originally; should you still post it? Or do we just ignore it all since we are on a de-centralized platform? Does copyrighted material even mean anything anymore?

Let's hear your thoughts.

Pictures taken from Google Images...I'll let you decide if they were stolen or not.

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Yes, people who only post low effort content shouldn't be rewarded for it. No one is 'singling out' poor old Zer0Hedge, he gets more attention because of how successful he is.

Regarding youtube videos, sure sometimes I've put a cool song at the end of one of my tech write-ups, but I would of got the same rewards either way - the post wasn't about the song and the majority of my post revenue is automatic. I don't think people even liked the songs ... I think I got one comment when I shared Damian Marley at the end of a post and silence when I shared the only ever song J Dillah actually spat on: Tribe Called Quest feat Jay Dee - That Shit.

I think your post is a great example, you've put a lot of effort and thought into it, but you haven't yet made as much as ZH. Even though I disagree with what you're saying, I think you deserve more for this post.

And yes it is about making money, not about sharing stuff. Sharing stuff is great. No one cares if you share a video on twitter or facebook because you don't get paid for it. People can share away - there's a button for not accepting post rewards. People are doing these low effort posts and actually expecting to be rewarded for it - they think they deserve it - IMO they are lazy, entitled pieces of crap, giving very little and trying to take a lot (some more successfully than others).

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Yes, people who only post low effort content shouldn't be rewarded for it.

How about letting informed people reward them what they think they deserve?

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How about not being a waste of oxygen? I mean I know the money's good and easy, but is it actually good for your sense of self worth? Personally I'd feel like a piece of shit if I was you.

That's just me though.

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but is it actually good for your sense of self worth?

Are you seriously asking this?
Yes, I'm adding value to Steem by relaying good content to all Steemian who want it.

I'm also personally enjoying the conversation that is happening about these issues here instead of that garbage comment section on ZeroHedge.com

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you're not adding any value for me.

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What does that even mean? How is that applicable to this discussion?

Are you the barometer and standard to measure by? I not trying to be a jerk here but when debating something like this, it is best to stick with what is applicable. There is a lot of stuff on here that adds no value to me yet that doesnt mean it shouldnt be posted. Posts about bird watching add no value to steemit for me but it does to those who care about that sort of thing.

I am not sure you finding value in something or not has anything to do with whether the person should post it or not.

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I didn't say whether he should post it or not, I said that I don't see him as adding value to the network, I see him as corroding the reputation of the whole system, and doing so for his own personal gain.

There is a lot of stuff on here that adds no value to me yet that doesnt mean it shouldnt be posted. Posts about bird watching add no value to steemit for me but it does to those who care about that sort of thing.

And you're welcome to ignore them, like everyone else...they're not hurting anybody. Being deceptive about WHO you are, and copying other people's written works, then passing them off as your own is a shitty usage of our system in my humble opinion.

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Great comment @bulleth, I wholeheartedly agree with your take on this.

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Thanks v4apid, and thanks so much for all your support on my posts!

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What a great reply @bulleth. I agree with you. If you copy and paste something at least add some of your own commentary and/or analysis to the topic. Anyone can copy and paste some information and add a disclaimer and 'Voila' I have a post completed.

I'd be interested to see how long it takes for @Zer0hedge to create a post. I am sure I could bang one out in a few minutes using a ready made disclaimer and copying and formatting content that someone else has produced.

I am starting to change my mind on this issue. It is clear when zer0hedge started it was taking advantage of ZH. I still do not think it is wrong to post material from other sources as long as it is linked and cited and used as a point to start a conversation. But doing it WITH the name zer0hedge is wrong and could be construed as infringement to some copyright issues, IMO
John Smith doing it is ok, but to mimic or confuse at first glance is risky.
This is a complex issue. It crosses so many laws and opinions.
Everyone has a right to spread and comment on whatever they want.
It's not right to impersonate ZH with a name so close in spelling that it deceives a vast majority of it's readers. Headlines do count as does first glance and reasonableness, of course that is IMO.
Just change the name and continue fair use. Maybe ask for a job with ZH, or offer a service. Lot's of content providers should post here but do not.
It is not a job a average family member, friend, or employee can technically accomplish. Find a solution. But really it is only the internet and we are all going to die in a 100 years or less at one time or other, so does it matter that much?

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Things to consider

Do I compete with ZeroHedge on Steem?

If ZeroHedge was to verify itself on Steem and post they would no doubt make 50x more than me and I'd me making close to nothing... because people would prefer to be supporting their editing work instead of my curation and formatting work.

If Steemit was better designed then maybe ZeroHedge could make a claim for the proper name @ZeroHedge
But that's not unusual for some people to have to use @TheReal... or some sort of prefix on twitter.

Is this more likely to trigger Zerohedge sue the steem blockchain (a preposterous concept) or it more likely that ZeroHedge will see a value in on-boarding steem?

I think the later is very unlikely because although most of the smart people are using an ad blockers Zerohedge is one of the most advertisement laden website and would for a long time to come be making a whole lot more money this way.

He only started posting a disclaimer because someone called him out on it.

He's only out to bank on the reputation of a site by copying the logo and using a similar name. Any changes you see were recent - again, because he was nervous about being caught out.

Here's the real story - LINK

You might rationalize copying because others do it, I still think it's an abuse of the rewards pool.

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This is one of the central aspects regarding @zer0hedge

  • use of the official ZH logo
  • user name is ZEROHEDGE

This is very misleading.

As an example, if I want to donate to a charity, like say GreenPeace or World Wildlife Fund and I see an account here with the name and logo of GreenPeace and it links to the official site... there's a very good chance that I may think I'm making a donation to the real organization.

Tyler Durden of ZeroHedge Joined Steemit  Oh  it s only Copy Paste Zer0Hedge — Steemit(1).png

This is from 3 months ago.
We can plainly see that there's no disclaimer of non-affiliation at this point.

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Where is steemcleaners? I've been "cleaned" fo so much less...
I knew this guy for months and was amazed than nobody said anything !

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I can agree with this 100%....the name is very misleading and obviously meant to benefit from the reputation Zerohedge created.

He would be on much safer ground if he posted under a generic name...at least then he couldnt be accused of trying to fool people into thinking he is the original or related to them.

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Again, are you going to go after the others with the same venom?

There is one poster who puts up about 100 MEMEs a day...I am certain he didnt create them nor does he have written permission from each creator....do you post your same warning in his posts (maybe you do, I havent looked).

I dont have to go too far down my feed to find someone who posted nothing but a youtube video. What is ironic is the ones that usually create the video, write something up...those that dont just post the video...again, do you go after them?

If you are on a crusade to make people aware of non original content and push for people to produce their own, I applaud that. You wont get any dispute from me about that. However, it seems you are rather selective in your attacks which then is not a crusade but a vendetta.

You might rationalize copying because others do it, I still think it's an abuse of the rewards pool.

Or is it that he is making money?

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Is it just about the money? Is it even relevant. Or makes it worse that he can?

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You're a supporter of his, so I don't see how I can make any argument that will change your mind - but there are some points to be made.

Memes aren't posted with the expectation of making money - they are frequently shared. Not the same thing.

Authors on Zerohedge have an arrangement, and they allow their content to be hosted there because they know it turns into revenue for them in addition to any mutual compensation.

"Everybody does it" isn't a defense. Its an excuse.

If you can't see that he's profiting off of someone elses work, then I can't help you.

You certainly are helping him.

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You're a supporter of his, so I don't see how I can make any argument that will change your mind...

Why do you write this? Do you know that to be true?

Memes aren't posted with the expectation of making money...

When a Meme or a Youtube video is posted on Steemit and it is the only part of the post, I dont think you can make the claim you just did...

"Everybody does it" isn't a defense. Its an excuse.

So it is an excuse to point out that you single out this one while letting others pass? A good misdirection on your part to avoid answering the question as to why you have a vendetta against this particular person.

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We get it, you love the idea of copy-paste profiteering.

Nice ethics.

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Try this on for size:

I get it, by your refusal to answer the question posed to you a couple of time, it shows you love the idea of copy-pasting profiteering EXCEPT when it comes to zer0hedge.

How does that feel?

That is the second time you made an assumption that is absolutely incorrect. We are having a discussion about a topic and yet you prefer to lob accusations which means you really have little to add to the conversation.

Getting back to the topic, there is a certain poster on here who puts up 30+ MEMEs a day and nothing else. He is taking dollars a day out of the reward pool and yet I dont see you on his posts putting up that is taking content for profiting purposes. You are on here about twice as long as I am so if I could find I am sure you could to...he is all over the new page most days.

Again in two months on here I have not seen your warning post anywhere other for zer0hedge and I comment on a lot of posts. Why is that? You make the claim to be against copy/paste profiteering, where is the warning when so many are doing it. You said that everyone is doing it is not a defense, it is an excuse. Okay, if that is the case where are your warnings? Sure everyone isnt doing it but there are many, many who are...

And I do apologize to you if you have been posting that warning in others who do what zer0hedge is doing. However, since I have not see it once outside of him and I can find those who are also doing it, then I presume you see them too. Yet you take no action with them.....

why?

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I'm super-sorry that I can't be everywhere at once. Maybe when I die and ascend to an astral plane - I can fulfill your omnipotent scenario.

All the best, xoxoxox

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If you can't see that he's profiting off of someone elses work, then I can't help you.

Apart from your posts, that I personally define as pure entropy, the whole of humanity has been built from people benefiting from other people's work up to this point.

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Coming from you, that's a compliment.

You couldn't create something interesting if your life depended on it. Its obvious. Since you decided to make your posts 99.9% someone elses work underscores the fact you have zero creativity.

Your chain of rationalizations is laughable and only provides further support for my point of view. This isn't about human knowledge being spread - its about low-effort parasites getting a free monetized ride off of someone else.

But naturally you cast yourself in a favorable role, because you can't (or won't) see it any other way.

Says a lot about your lack of character and ethics.

Steemit is kind of part blog, part FB/reddit/twitter/tumblr. If you think of it as a blog, that's rather over the line. If you think of it as Facebook, that's like 80% of what FB is, just sharing content you didn't make but thought was worthy to share. On FB that's called curation, much like we call upvoting and resteeming here.
Since Steemit is both, it resides in a gray area. I haven't seen this particular user, so with that in mind, taking a similar name and sharing ONLY their content, if that's all he does, seems more on the shady side. If he shares other things as well and is posting essentially what he thinks is the best stuff on the internet, that's just FBing it.
I mostly post my own original content, but I've shared some videos I didn't make because I thought they were important.
If all he's doing is copying ONE site, then I would click that link to support those content creators. But if I'm scrolling through my feed and see one YouTube video and one crypto article c&p'd and one news article from a different site and a meme? I'm not going to four different sites, I just stay on the feed. I guess for me it's the blatantcy or not, disclaimer or no.

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If he shares other things as well and is posting essentially what he thinks is the best stuff on the internet,

ZeroHedge.com is pretty much the best stuff on the internet to me, It's extremely overwhelming the amount of stuff that get posted there.

I'd say what I do is kinda similar as someone who would do a daily best of Reddit.com

BTW The disclaimer has been telling people to resteem instead of upvoting for about the last 4 months.

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That's awesome FYI there's actually a setting for that:

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Ahh, okay, I can see that then. I'm not familiar with the original site, either. So essentially you're like those "best of tumblr" pages on Facebook, that share the funniest tumblr threads, curated.

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Kinda, I take the most important news or worrisome article, skip the drama/click-baits, add most crypto news while trying to not put article that are too finance-technical.

And I do that promptly everyday if not 3 times a day without missing a beat.

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Keep on truckin' bro!

I'm a supporter.

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Thanks for the encouragement.

With so many that DON'T at lease this guy gives credit where it belongs, which in my opinion is very honest and up front. If it's worth it to someone to check it out well it's all good if you post something not knowing the creator I'd still say source unknown ....guess we shouldn't hate the player ...hate the game. :)

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I rebuffed one of his detractors earlier today and couldn't agree more. He DOES ALWAYS give credit to the source material.

Also, and ironically, he is doing a great curation service for Steemians, by choosing the content he does. I in fact appreciate the cull -- although i wind up reading almost everything on Zh anyways...
I say pick your battles, and kearn from the people who are doing it right, if a little less imaginative.

Cheers! from @thedamus

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It seems like you feel the same as I do. When it comes to giving proper attribution and linking back to the source of an article outside of steem, why are there bots here that try to cast shame.

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Yeah it isnt as if he is trying to pass anything off as his own. He is very open and fully states what he is doing. That disclaimer isnt hidden...it is there for all to see.

Is he operating in a gray area? Without a douby. However, is he really any different than what most do on here on a daily basis?

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Yeah, because he added it in the last few days after people started complaining.

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While I agree he did start to add it where it previously wasnt, it is hardly in the last few days. I took a quick scroll through his site and went back three months, he had a disclaimer on there.

There is enough to debate about here when dealing with the facts. When you start to make stuff up that is categorically untrue, it negates any validity you are trying to present.

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It's been there for about 4 months and source has been cited since day 1.

So do you mind if I copy/paste this article on my blog as long as I credit you in a tiny footnote at the bottom?

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Since you asked and you have two personal coins since your conscious is on the blockchain, go right ahead. LOL

Of course, there is nothing really for me to do to stop you if you wanted to do that.....

AND it might ultimately be better for me if you did that if you had a big enough following....

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I get where people are upset about blatant plagiarism. And on a platform like this it is easy to profit off of someones hard work.

I think most people are at least conscientious about using others work for personal gain. Because we all do it to some degree.

It just feels a little like SJW run amok for the Steemit Police to get constantly running around trying to combat plagiarism. This platform is soooo much more than that.

I'll let you know when my ICO drops. You can have dibs on the first million coins.

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I just posted to someone else that he certainly heads right into a gray area with how blatant he is. However, since he is also open and completely honest about it. Plus, he does set up links that go right back to their website.

Which blockchain are you going on...bitcoin, eth, or steem? Or are you going to create your own?

as long as he give credit to the source material then their is nothing wrong we post memes from the internet and videos from you tube ,

Copy- Past - it's the same great mastery. Everyone is stealing something from someone .

Everyone is a critic! If he was breaking a law, the real zerohedge would stop it.
Is it a gray area, yes. Even if at first he didn't link and credit everything that was wrong and was corrected. IMO it is legit to do ,until it's not. It won't last forever.
Either steem will fold, or the real zerohedge will post.
If anything he is doing ZH a favor and promoting it and its free advertising and will only grow traffic to their site. Only harm being done here is the Self appointed wanna be police state censors that want to stifle anything them deem offensive or not totally fair or cut and dry so they can feel safe from boogiemen. I take no offense, and I hope that offends the SJW and little men with big erasers.

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I actually had that thought...he is creating a ton of publicity for Zerohedge.com. He is also creating backlinks from, what I understand, a fairly high ranking site and moving up the Alexa ratings. Having those backlinks posted 3-4 times a day isnt a bad thing I wouldnt imagine.

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Steemit has HUGE Seo potential ... the thing is, all content is auto-marked with the canonical tag, so by copy pasting a story, google will see two versions of the same content both claiming to be canonical ... I think Steemit is more popular than ZH, but the article appears at ZH first ... not sure how google would work it out.

General backlinks from original content to other original content are awesome though! Steem is an authority site for a ton of topics and way up there in global rankings.

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Thanks for explaining that @belluth.

Based upon what you wrote, he most likely isnt helping out zerohedge at all since google might actually penalize duplicate content.

I never really understood what @jerrybanfield was talking about in one of his videos that posting on steemit helps peoples blogs until I started seeing how highly ranked this site is.

I would image blogger and wordpress are up there also but I could be wrong.

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No worries. SEO is like Dark Wizardry, it's hard to know exactly what google is doing and you ask one guy and he'll give you one answer and you ask another specialist and he'll give you another. They both only want to work 3 days a fortnight and take home 160K too!

I don't think google would penalise either site as such, but the "link juice" would go to one or the other. I imagine google is smart enough to work out where the article appeared first, but you never know.

I'm not familiar with blogger, but if it's like wordpress, it's hard to compare to Steemit. Steemit is more like medium. Here's a good article on SEO value of Medium vs the very limited value of social platforms like Linkedin, Twitter etc.

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I think depending on how much text was changed most of the article would show to have appeared elsewhere than on ZeroHedge. About half of Zerohedge content is 1:1 repost.

I think sometime It's better to do 1:1 repost than to add very little commentary as it could confuse the source of the commentary for the author or the main article.

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Yeah lots of their stuff is just blockquotes from bloomberg or reuters with spin added

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ZeroHedge.com must be about an order of magnitude more popular than all of Steemit.com

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You're right ... I swear Steemit was #1000ish just a couple months ago ... but must of pulled that out of my ass. Ranking has dropped according to this, but doubt it fell that far, that quickly.

https://www.similarweb.com/website/zerohedge.com?competitors=steemit.com

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The alexa rating and links are good points. As long as it is sited it is ok IMO.
ZH could hire him or a new job may have been created!

plagiarism probably pisses of all school english teachers. lol. but me on the other hand. i dont give a fuck

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Plagiarism is when you claim credit for something you didn't create, There is none of this here.

@mrainp420 has voted on behalf of @minnowpond. If you would like to recieve upvotes from minnowponds team on all your posts, simply FOLLOW @minnowpond.

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does the blockchain care what input it gets as long as it grows?

I have to say that despite the issue at hand, the comments and discussions have been a lot more civil than most places I have seen online. Maybe we need the Jury Online project to settle this one?

https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@jury.online/introducing-jury-online-and-the-jot-token-or-the-future-of-dispute-resolution

I applaud all the people that have kept an open mind on this matter, and I can tell you from my experience passing down verdicts on tribunals, no one goes home happy even if someone actually 'wins'. I think this is a great example of why I think the Steemit community is going to become even bigger and better.
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