Is copying without citation in an Answer against KA Guidelines?

Yes! It's not stated in the guidelines currently, but we've still been removing plagiarized content. Feel free to flag any posts that appear to be copied from somewhere without credit.

I've added this to the proposed guidelines changes that we are currently working on :)

Thank you.  Is there any kind of timeline on the changes, such as later this year vs 5 years from now?

We just discussed this last week and again this week, so this is actively being worked on. I'm not sure of the exact timeline for when the updates will be finalized and published, but I would expect soon-ish. I'd say by the start of the upcoming school year in August at the latest.

I imagine that AI content is considered plagiarism? I see a lot of answers present - 2 years old which is clearly AI generated and rarely helpful (just so vague because the AI doesn't have context to answer to hopelessly vaguely worded questions like we do).

Yes, if it looks clearly AI-generated and isn't helpful you can flag it.

If someone keeps asking Questions that have been answered within the last week (like fewer than 5 posts before), do I at some point start flagging those questions, since the guidelines do say to look first before posting a question that's been answered?

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On a related topic, why are internal links are hidden automatically in discussions under videos?  (What are the risks of allowing unmoderated internal links?)  How long does it typically take for such links to get approved (or permanently hidden/deleted)?
If someone in 6th grade math is asking how to add fractions, it seems helpful to give them the link to a KA video about how to do it.  Telling them how to find it would otherwise be quite complex if the video is in a different Unit or even a different course, and it seems wasteful for me to re-create what was already created.

Yes, you can flag any duplicate posts. For these I suggest posting an answer with a link to the older question, and then flag the post. After we delete the duplicate question they'll still be able to view your answer with the link to the existing question and answer.

Internal links shouldn't be auto-hidden. Do you have an example of this?

Thank you for the suggestion on duplicate Questions.  (I'll have to see how much effort it will be to link to a question someone posted years ago. One way to do that is to go to the user's profile and sort their questions. I guess I could try posting a Comment on the question, copying the link from my Comments list, then deleting my Comment.)

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Internal links: According to What are the guidelines for posting links, images, and videos on the community forums?: "In discussions under forums, videos, and articles on Khan Academy, external and internal links are hidden automatically, but will be approved by a moderator (our Guardians) if they are ...".  I did not check, I just assumed that internal links in a post under a video would be auto-hidden, since it seemed to be stated clearly and authoritatively on an official KA article.

My Support Community posts often get hidden pending approval if they have KA internal links, such as my post to you 5 hours ago about the posting restriction I got today (in our existing thread on the topic). 
Another post (that was just text and 1 KA internal link) I made in the Support Community was pending approval for 19 days until I used Report a Problem.  Andrew wrote "I know that many of the links that you used were from Khan Academy, but it looks like the system cannot differentiate between those and other external links."  He also wrote "It looks like everything is working correctly". [I am very frustrated with the responses on that - they seem either opaque or contradictory or both.]

I was referring to duplicate questions on the same video, which you should be able to find pretty easily by using the "Top Voted" sort. If you right click on the "X months ago" on the question you should be able to copy a link to the post from there.

I updated that article to clarify that only external links are automatically hidden.

The support center uses a totally different spam filter, which we are unable to modify. Sometimes posts with links are mistaken as spam and get auto-hidden.

Thank you for updating the article to clarify that only external links are automatically hidden. I'm glad that within the KA content internal links are not hidden.

Thank you for the suggestion to right click on the "X months ago" to link to a post – I somehow either never realized that worked or forgot about it.  That will be hugely helpful.  (This would be a great addition to a hypothetical tutorial about how to get the most out of Khan Academy.)

I appreciate you supporting me as I try to support learners on Khan Academy.

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You wrote "I was referring to duplicate questions on the same video, which you should be able to find pretty easily by using the "Top Voted" sort."  I asked about "Questions that have been answered within the last week (like fewer than 5 posts before)", because I sometimes answer the same question repeatedly that is not in the Top Voted Questions.  I'm still unclear on when a question is considered a duplicate that should be flagged: if it is basically the same as one of the ~5 Top Voted Questions, if it is basically the same as one of the ~10 most Recent Questions, both, or something else.

JaniceHolz If a question is a duplicate of anything in the first ~2 pages of Top Voted questions then you can flag it as a duplicate. We want users to at least make an effort to look through the top-voted questions before posting, so if it seems like they haven't done that then feel free to flag it.

If there's lots of recent duplicate questions, then I suggest answering one of them and flagging the rest. On the posts that you flag, it would be helpful if you post an Answer on those with a link to the duplicate that has an actual answer. This way users can still get the answer they need, and we know that it's a duplicate and can remove it.

Evan Lewis

Thank you for answering my question clearly.  I truly appreciate it 😊

I'll start Answering 1 recent Question, then on the others asking the same thing I'll post a link to that Answer in their Answer before flagging them. If I do that, will each user who asked a flagged Question still get a notification of my Answer and be able to see it, even if they don't log in again until after their Question has been deleted?

(I'd been trying to avoid posting anything on a post I was flagging because I thought I had read that users can get in trouble for engaging with posts that are supposed to be flagged.  I'm finding it challenging to keep up with all the nuances of how to respond to posts.
The new guidelines have helped, but there are so many possible situations!)

Yes, they will still get a notification of your Answer even if their Question is deleted. They'll also still be able to see their question and your answer after clicking on the notification.

Yeah I understand there's a lot of nuance here, so that's for your pertinence and understanding! In this case we're fine with users posting a link to the duplicate question since it's helpful to the user and not likely to cause confrontation. We just don't want users posting things like "you should follow the guidelines" or anything else that might create arguments---in those cases it's best if we reach out directly and privately to the user!

I just remembered -- in the discussion posts, the Khan Academy website only renders part of the web address as a link.  If I post a link to an Answer, it shows up like this: https://www.khanacademy.org/math/cc-sixth-grade-math/cc-6th-expressions-and-variables/cc-6th-lcm/v/least-common-multiple-exercise?qa_expand_key=ag5zfmtoYW4tYWNhZGVteXI8CxIIVXNlckRhdGEiHmthaWRfMTE0MjQ2Nzg1NTMyODk3NTQyMjMwMTE5NQwLEghGZWVkYmFjaxjJmhkM&qa_expand_type=answer 
(or is that another thing that apparently only happens to me?)

I'll try to explain to copy the whole thing into the address bar, but I'm not sure how many learners will understand.

Evan Lewis

I just realized that there is still nothing I can find in the updated guidelines about citing your source if you copy from somewhere.  Many users don't seem to think there is anything wrong with copying paragraphs from a website with no indication that they didn't write it themselves.  (I also can't find anything about not copying the transcript or the About text, which people keep doing).

Will there be an addition to the official guidelines that you must cite your source if you copy entire sentences or more?