~~~Posting Jokes--Is it equivalent to copy and pasting wikipedia articles?~~~

I couldn't agree with you more. Everything that you stated is exactly what I say daily. It would be so easy for mylot to go straight down the jokes and delete them the same is true with the earn extra money interest and all the personal referral links. Your absolutely right that mylot should send out an alert stating that these 2 things are against the guidelines and offenders will have their accounts suspended. All earnings lost. Thank you for the best response. :)

The problem is, do you cite the source you copy and pasted the joke from, do you create a discussion around the joke you are using? if you take the words off another website and do not cite the site, it is technically plagiarism. But it is not even so much that, as it is the fact that there are numerous members on here that post only jokes--why should mylot pay these members to copy and paste jokes from another online source? I would think Mylot would be concerned that certain members have found a way to scam them for earnings by non-stop joke posting.

UPDATE: I forwarded this discussion thread and my concerns about members starting discussion thread after thread with copy and pasted "jokes". According to Mylot this is against Mylot rules, and we members are to report abuse for those that are doing so. So heads up to everyone that thinks they can create thread after thread of copy and pasted jokes--it is a violation. Again, I don't want to rain on everyones parade--I like a good joke, BUT, if you cannot start a discussion around the joke you will post plus give the link to where you found it or mention it was an email--then you technically aren't 'creating a discussion' but rather putting up a 'billboard of sorts' that draws in all the cheaters and scammers that will sit here all day and post nothing but 'jokes'--I just want you all to reflect on that and think about what would happen if we all were to 'believe' copy and pasting jokes was okay to do. We would have a forum filled with repetitious threads of jokes and very little discussion going on.

I was thinking about starting another discussion about it, but I've already mentioned in this one the outcome and feedback I received from Mylot, and most members don't care. I find that so many members do not even read the guidelines for this site to begin with, and so my information would not be absorbed in the way I wish it would be. Just today, I found a member who has been with mylot for 8 months and has over 13000 posts to their name, yet every discussion they have created has been either a copy and pasted joke or some stolen text from some other website. They've been paid over and over again by mylot for months and yet no one has picked up on the fact that this person has been cheating and scamming for months. I really think Mylot needs to hire more staff to moderate this site, and definitely staff that check for things like plagiarism, copyright infringement, and every other violation before payment is authorized. If they keep allowing these members to get away with this, it sends the wrong message to new members who join. New members will see that there are all these members doing this and will themselves do the same thing. I get tired of policing mylot--and I am finding that many of my mylot friends are moving on. Anyway, if I have some time maybe I will start another thread on this--one that will enlighten and maybe reach some members.

hi JC, me myself do post jokes round here, about me i don't care if i get paid or not but sharing some laughs and receiving comments that they liked / enjoy em make me happy too. i do get your point about the rules but nobodys perfect. rather remove "joke" from the interest so nobody can copy and paste. i guess most of the people here are not for money, but to enjoy the time sharing discussions, comments as well as the recipes, jokes.... sharing life... hope you don't make a big deal about it. coz nobodies perfect.

I'm only relaying what mylot relayed to me. I explained my position in my discussion, you are the one that came into my discussion and got rude for no reason. Sorry if you don't like the 'fact' that mylot agrees and finds 'joke discussion' as a violation and equivalent to plagiarism and that they do not add quality to the forum. Mylot did not create the interest "jokes", members did...or did you not know that you can do that when you add interersts to your profile? Mylot gave me feedback because many of us older members were concerned about whether this was a violation because we remember how this forum was months ago when cheaters and scammers were making this place a poor quality forum. Mylot asked us then to report these abusers, and they continue to ask us to do so. If you don't like it, take it up with mylot. If you copy and paste a recipe without giving the link you stole it from, yep that is plagiarism and in some cases it is copyright infringement which can get you into alot more trouble then just having your account deleted. Mylot does not want members to sit here all day and copy and paste text they find on some other site for the sake of making a quantity of posts--if you create in your own words a discussion surrounding the topic of a recipe, then give the link to the recipe there is no issue with anyone including mylot. I suggest you read the guidelines before you bring your rude writings into my discussion. You are the one that has missed the point and maybe it is because you have not been here for months like some of us who have been here and seen what the forum was like before all the 'rules'. As I said above, if mylot gives us the right to copy and paste jokes, do you know what this forum will become? Think about it, if every member here decided "hey I want to make quick money, I will sit here all day and copy and paste jokes from some website..." that is all you would have here. This is why mylot says it is a violation... This is what mylot told me: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hello JC1969. You have received a private myLot message from myLot_ContactUs! myLot_ContactUs (0) 4/4/2007 Thank you Jan for expressing your concern for this ongoing problem in myLot. We are aware of this problem and we have taken action against the users that have been brought to our attention. Like you said in this message, with the help of the myLot users we were able to weed out the abusers before, but we still rely on the users in this matter as well. We do not see all the discussions that are being posted, so we encourage everyone to report these joke discussions as abuse and state in the abuse report that this user is posting jokes in the majority of the discussions. Our moderators will then look into the matter and take appropriate action. Again, thank you for the message and we hope to get this problem solved shortly. Let us know if you have any questions or concerns regarding this matter, and please report all of these discussions as abuse. We definitely appreciate all the help we can get. Have a great day. myLot Staff ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So Tess1960, if you don't like the rules, you can take it up with them. My discussion was to get points of views and takes on this topic, I addressed it with Mylot and got the truth with regards to it.

It is apparent you took my response totally out of context. And by the way, I did agree to an extent. I also got the result I wanted from you. An answer to a few questions. 1 being, No I did not know that I can create my own discussions in my profile. I was not aware of this and thank you for that info. 2 being, You added in to your comment to my response the response you received from mylot admin. I was able to read their words and construe the meaning for myself. I appreciate this as being a newbie here, as you pointed out, I cannot copy and paste and DO NOT KNOW HOW to contact mylot admin; so I must rely on nice poeople like you to help me with that. (Stop reading this as if I am being sarcastic/rude; I'm being honest here.) I did agree and stated that these people posting jokes should be given negative ratings. I thought this would be considered turning them in to mylot, but I now know I was wrong. It is not my fault that the mylot Rules are vague on certain points, such as: how to contact them or get a response from them. I apoologize if my comment came off as rude, you may have taken it that way, however, I assure you it was not meant that way. As I know nothing about the way it was in the past and have to rely on "oldies" to tell me, thanks for the history lesson. AND lastly, Thank you for answering my last question! I will find out what wikipedia is myself. Obviously you only want discussion responses from people that will be totally agreeable with you and not bother to bring up other aspects of a discussion/conversation, which by the way would help to keep the dialogue going. I will bother you no more. Stay out of my discussions and I will gladly stay out of yours. Another potential friend down the drain! Mylotters sure are touchy these days!

first off, agreeing with me on one of my discussions is never a pre-requiste to responding to my discussions, and if you read some of my discussions you will even note that I am good at giving those who do not have my same take "best response", because that is the type of person I am. But, when someone comes into my topic and starts off with this line--"I have read your whine and 3 responses and your comments. What I am hearing is a "temper tantrum." You can bet I am going to tell you that it was rude, and you were. You didn't come in here and state your point you attacked my discussion, which was done respectfully and in a tone that was responsible. So when you lead into a discussion like that, you should expect to be called on it. My discussion fully explained my point of view and how and why 'Jokes' are considered plagiarism. I've also done a discussion on a recipe, however if you weed through my discussions and find it, you will notice that I created a 'discussion' and my recipe was not copy and pasted nor was it the main focus of the discussion--it encouraged an actual discussion. I am glad you now understand where I was coming from. As for wikipedia, it is a site that allows people to go and and create 'encyclopedia-type' article entries on topics, and other people can go into it and add more or even edit the entries (which is why it is not a valid factual source and should always be checked out for information accurracy). Unfortunately, many people on here believed that it was okay to go to wikipedia and copy and paste a whole article or a snip of a wikipedia article and create a discussion, when all it was was a copy and pasted plagiarized text and there was no discussion--just this snip of article. Many people on here also think that because mylot went with the rule of 500 posts you can copy and paste--that it literally means you can go and copy and paste anything and everything. See I was here before that rule, and it was not really an effective rule, but mylot was trying to prevent those members from scamming and cheating by going and stealing text from other websites and not starting a real discussion in their own words. But see the cheaters got around that---many of them use a certain browser that allows them to bypass the 'no copy and paste feature' enacted by mylot, so the rule never really worked. It has always been up to us members with keen eyes for writing to point mylot in the direction of cheaters and scammers--and mylot encourages that. See if everyone would read the writer's guidelines and follow the rules by not responding to members discussions that fall under violations, and report their violations, then they wouldn't get paid and mylot would be aware of the person's violations. There are so many members on here that never stop and read the rules or know what constitutes getting your discussions and responses deleted that they keep on making these mistakes, and if you try to tell them they are doing something wrong--you instantly get attacked by them and their friends. here are the rules and guidelines--there are more that are unwritten and if you are unsure just ask mylot and they will tell you-- http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/457762.aspx and http://www.mylot.com/o/guidelines.aspx contact mylot (link is at bottom of page): http://www.mylot.com/o/contactus.aspx here's another helpful link for mylot: http://www.mylot.com/o/mylot.aspx