Bloggers are the New Plagiarism 326
mjeppsen writes "PlagiarismToday offers a thought-provoking article that frankly discusses concerns with plagiarism and rote content theft among bloggers. In the section entitled "Block quotes by the Dozen" the author mentions the so-called "gray area". That is PlagiarismToday's classification of the common blogger practice of re-using large blocks of text/content from the original article or source, even when the source is attributed."
Bzzzzt! (Score:5, Informative)
Its not plagiarism then is it?
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:3, Insightful)
That's plagiarism, whether cited it or not.
Think of some of the "techno trends" blog links that make it to slashdot som
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
No, it's not copyright infringement either. Citing text with attribution is not outlawed under copyright law, therefore, there is no infringement.
Using excerpts of what we learn from each other with proper source citation is what we are SUPPOSED to be doing. It is not illegal in any way. Profit doesn't even come into the equation.
Sorry (Score:3, Informative)
If you quote a large enough section of any writing it can be considered infringment and not fair use.
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
It may or may not be copyright infringement. It all depends on whether the author still has any copyright protection over the material.
For example, you can quote the entirity of Melville's Moby Dick without infringing Mr. Melville's copyright.
For that matter, you can publish a complete copy of Moby Dick, but you would commit plagiarism if you put your name on it as the author instead of Mr. Melvill's.
Heh. (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, with the internet cash flow model being built around page views, it is clearly dishonest for a blogger to simply copy-paste someone else's content on their own site.
Someone who is actually creating their own content would be satisfied with a hyperlink...for them to be pasting huge chunks of material, suggests to me that they have a simple (and intellectually dishonest) profit motive.
On the other hand, I do like the occasional full article text post, but I think that should only be in the comments, and only where there is a link in the top-level post, which is either restricted (i.e. WSJ, NYT, AJC, etc) or Slashdotted.
Either way I think a content provider could make a solid case for copyright infringement. If I printed my own copy of someone else's book with a citation at the beginning stating that all that follows comes from this other book, then I'm clearly ripping them off.
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/10.4
Looks like stock OpenSSH to me.
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:5, Funny)
Going to the Original Article (Score:2)
If it is a good item, then both items should be acknowledged. Although some blogs have made an interesting practical joke on this....
Re:funny (Score:2)
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
Exactamundo. Quibbling about semantics sometimes seems worthless, until you remember that people's opinions and morals are often swayed by using just the right (or wrong) words. Witness the ??AA calling copyright infringement "stealing" to throw the weight of the Ten Comman
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:5, Informative)
For example, the wikipedia article says that "Plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty; it is a matter of deceit: fooling a reader into believing that certain written material is original when it is not. Plagiarism is a serious academic offense when the goal is to obtain some sort of personal academic credit or personal recognition.
Plagiarism is not necessarily the same as copyright infringement, which occurs when one violates copyright law." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagarism)
That is the correct way to properly cite the article, so as to not avoid plagarism.
This is wrong, because I don't cite the article OR use quotes:
Plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty; it is a matter of deceit: fooling a reader into believing that certain written material is original when it is not. Plagiarism is a serious academic offense when the goal is to obtain some sort of personal academic credit or personal recognition.
Plagiarism is not necessarily the same as copyright infringement, which occurs when one violates copyright law.
This is wrong, because I don't cite the article:
"Plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty; it is a matter of deceit: fooling a reader into believing that certain written material is original when it is not. Plagiarism is a serious academic offense when the goal is to obtain some sort of personal academic credit or personal recognition.
Plagiarism is not necessarily the same as copyright infringement, which occurs when one violates copyright law."
This is wrong because, EVEN THOUGH I'm citing the article, I'm still stealing their words. If they're using a specific wording and I use it, even if I cite the article, I MUST use quotes. Thus, the following is incorrect:
According to Wikipedia, plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty; it is a matter of deceit: fooling a reader into believing that certain written material is original when it is not. Plagiarism is a serious academic offense when the goal is to obtain some sort of personal academic credit or personal recognition.
Plagiarism is not necessarily the same as copyright infringement, which occurs when one violates copyright law.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagarism)
Note, however, that if I don't use their words, only a citation is necessary:
According to wikipedia, plagarism is a grave issue of cheating and using someone else's words as your own without giving them credit. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagarism)
I see the third type of plagarism (No quotes, direct word lift, and citation) on Slashdot ALL THE TIME. Whenever a submitter copies part of the article verbatim without quoting it, that's plagarism.
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:3, Informative)
That's plagiarism, whether cited it or not.
Do you have a reference for this definition of plagarism? The definition I found is more
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
plagiarism, which is the uncredited use (both intentional and unintentional) of somebody else's words or ideas. [purdue.edu]
The site you link to contains the following statement:
But helpfully links to the helpful Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism:The WPA Statement on Best Practices. [wpacouncil.org]That site contains the following:
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
without acknowledging its source.
and
presented as being your own work
None of these definitions make any reference to the AMOUNT of content that is used, if additional content was added or if profit was made from the quotation. In short, it is NOT plagarism as long as there is not an attempt to pass it off as original work.
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
If there is a citation given then the work is not being passed off as your own. It's not plagiarized.
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
Plagiarism is specifically taking another's work and presenting it as your own. Of course, if you give a professor an essay consisting only of one long attributed quote - he won't fail you for plagiarism, but for having no original content of your own, perhaps also for not showing any original thought either.
Plagiarism != Copyright Infringement (Score:2, Informative)
Small excerpts of text are usually considered "fair use". Large excerpts or wholesale copying is usuall
plagerism != copyright infringement (Score:2)
Plagerism and copyright infringment are congruent, but not equivalent. I think what you're describing there is copyright infringement, not plagerism. I always thought of plagerism as passing somebody else's una
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
That's plagiarism, whether cited it or not.
Think of some of the "techno trends" blog links that make it to slashdot some
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
No, it isn't, because plagiarism requires that you claim material as your own, which citation is done to avoid. Read it in the dictionary sometime. It takes what, five seconds to look it up online?
Plagiarism versus Copyright Violations (Score:3, Informative)
People seem to confuse these two concepts a lot. They occur together quite often, so I suppose it's understandable, but that doesn't make it correct.
Plagiarism is taking someone else's work for your own. Oftentimes this can be done without actually violating their copyright. For example, see the case of the recent Harvard student who got her book pulled because of passages that were very close to another book's. The passages aren't identical, and there's
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
Say, for example, one could post the text of the story on this forum. So that we all my read the intellectual property, whilst it's server (and it advertising revenue) sit there.
*Maybe* copyright violation, but not plagiarism (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, I would err on the side of fair use - particularly if the bloggers are adding significant amounts of criticism/commentary (for example, Groklaw recently commented on the blog of some ZDNet analyst, and PJ included almost the entire text of the blog entry - but that is because she was doing a point by point rebuttal of his tripe - that should be considered fair use, because it's almost impossible to rebut in entirety, if you cannot quote in entirety). If they copy 5 pages of article text and add a 3 line summary/critique at the top, that, to me, would not be fair use.
Re:*Maybe* copyright violation, but not plagiarism (Score:2)
Simply adding a citation does not make it impossible to plagiarize that same source.
Re:*Maybe* copyright violation, but not plagiarism (Score:2)
The essence of plagiarism is fraud--passing somebody else's work off as your own. Absent that element, it is not plagiarism.
Re:*Maybe* copyright violation, but not plagiarism (Score:2)
Yes, that's what may be open for debate, however, of all blogs I've visited, I can hardly say anything I've seen has raised doubts about this. Again, as the author names his section by, it's about these block quotes, and how often do these cover more than a paragraph or so? A majority of a document? Hardly. That would make for a quite hard to read blog too; people d
Re:Nonsense (Score:2)
How about a dictionary [answers.com] dude? Any reputable news source, professional journal, or education institution will have rules against copyright violations as well as plagiarism, but they won't call the "overuse of source material" something that it is not, even as they burn you for it. There are laws against that already, no need to try to fit it into another
Re:Nonsense (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism>
Just as people confuse "burglary" and "robbery", you are confusing the terms. You can't "rob" a house.
Plagiarism is use without giving credit. Copyright infringement is use that is not "fair use" nor authorized by the owner. You can also be "guilty" of both at the same time.
A few dictionary citations: plagiarize (Score:2)
Mirriam-Webster Dictionary [m-w.com]
So, it's not just "[My] definition of pagiarism only" - it appears that is the common dictionary definition of the word. There is a difference between plagiarize, and infringe copyright, and while they are both illegal, they aren't synonyms.
As for bloggers, it's a given that probably 90% of bloggers aren't very good, and aren't worth paying much attention to. If a blogger has to just copy other people's material in order to have content, I'm sure not gonna p
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
"Its not plagiarism then is it?"
Correct. "The new plagiarism" is not really plagiarism.
Likewise, when you see something like "white is the new black," the person making the statement is not actually confused about the difference between white and black. They are using irony and literary license.
Of course, on Slashdot, if somebody were to write something like "white is the new black" or "Linux is the new Windows" or "Larry Ellison is the new Bill Gates," somebody would probably reply with "no, Linu
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
Following up to my own post, I just got the new PC Magazine, and one of the cover stories is headlined "Red is the New Gray" in relation to a new Dell notebook. Again, the editors at PC Magazine are not of the misunderstanding that red and gray are the same color.
With all the discussion here of whether copying with attribution is really plagiarism, I'm guessing that the "______ is the new _______" phrase just isn't well-known among the Slashdot generation.
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
That's being far too charitable. More likely, this person is trying to muddy the issue by exploiting a poorly understood nuance in order to slander someone(s) percieved as being competitors.
or, New Plagiarism != Plagiarism (Score:3, Informative)
And then I read your bit and realized I didn't need to. It's amazing how many people don't seem to understand that the New Something shouldn't be the Old Something because then it would just be the Old Something. Maybe the article should try and coin a new phrase for the phenomena like "polypasting" or "prolificopy" or something. That way
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:3, Funny)
Sure it is.
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
There are rules for handling source material, of which crediting the author is only one. It's not appropriate to copy long swathes of text just because you threw in a citation somewhere.
I made no mention of whether it's appropriate or not - just that its not plagiarism if you cite the source - passing off the work as your own is one of the things that seperates copyright infringement from plagiarism.
'nuff said
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:3, Interesting)
You are right to say that it is a question of presentation. You are wrong to say that citing the source necessarily stops it being plagiarism.
For example, the following paragraph would be an example of plagiarism:
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:2)
That's a grayer area.
On slashdot, and in the context of quoting someone further up in a thread, I would say it's not plagiarism. But if you'd, say linked to another blog, it might have crossed the line.
Looking at the definition for cite:
I think it could be argued that under some circumstance you did
Re:Bzzzzt! (Score:3, Informative)
You know (Score:5, Funny)
Plagiarism mey be necessary (Score:5, Funny)
yes, the internet makes this easy (Score:4, Funny)
I agree, it is easy to copy and paste, and with the proliferation of blogs, on-line stories, etc., realizing and detecting inversely proportionately becomes harder.
What makes this issue so difficult to address, and so difficult to write about, is that it's not so much about gray blogs, but rather, various shades of grey blogs. The difference between someone simply quoting blogs and someone trying to tweak the system is not a clear cut matter, but a separation of degrees.
Quoting, even liberal quoting, is expected by blogs. It's a part of researching a story and covering ongoing stories as well as sharing information. If done properly, it can not only be used to create a new work, but also drive valuable traffic to the original site. In the blogging world, being the source is often a badge of honor.
You can say that again... (Score:5, Funny)
Here's the article text... (Score:5, Informative)
---
The Investor Relations Web Report calls it "the new plagiarism". Dan Zarella from Puritan City call those who engage in it "the best plagiarists". Others simply call them bloggers or, as Zarella also put it, "Human Aggregators".
They're a new breed of content users that walk a gray area between that which is clearly fair use and what is obviously content theft. Their blogs are marked with large swaths of block quotes and heavy content reuse, but also proper attribution and at least some original content.
These sites, as they've grown in number, have created a great deal of controversy among bloggers who are left to wonder if they are nothing more than content thieves in disguise.
Block quotes by the Dozen
These sites, which for this article I'll simply call "gray", are generally identified by a large number of very short posts, with much of it in block quotes or otherwise directly lifted content. Though they meticulously credit their sources, bowing to more traditional rules for blog attribution, and work to add at least some original content, usually over half of their material comes from other sources.
This has caused many bloggers to worry that these grey blogs might be trying to get away with content theft under the guise of legitimate attribution. The idea being that they can create a much larger volume of content if they only have to write a small portion of it. Users will simply visit the gray blogs since they are able to provide so much more information and, due to the use of liberal quoting, the user will then have no reason to visit the original source. After all, they already have most of the critical information.
While certainly grey blogs don't pose the same threat or raise the same concerns as spam blogs and other content scrapers, the cause for concern is clear. Even though blogging is about sharing and reusing information, excessive sharing threatens the authors penning the original content. The tale of the goose laying the golden egg springs to mind as, quite simply, greed can be the blogging world's biggest enemy.
A Separation of Degrees
What makes this issue so difficult to address, and so difficult to write about, is that it's not so much about gray blogs, but rather, various shades of grey blogs. The difference between someone simply quoting blogs and someone trying to tweak the system is not a clear cut matter, but a separation of degrees.
Quoting, even liberal quoting, is expected by blogs. It's a part of researching a story and covering ongoing stories as well as sharing information. If done properly, it can not only be used to create a new work, but also drive valuable traffic to the original site. In the blogging world, being the source is often a badge of honor.
However, basing your entire site, or even a larger percentage of it, on quoted content is viewed differently. Being a source in a larger article is one thing, but having your content be the majority of the article on another site another. What distinguishes one from the other is unclear at best. There are no math formulas or systems for determining what is right or what is too much.
More confusing still, everyone has a different idea of what constitutes content theft. With Creative Commons Licenses being very common, it's obvious some feel that copying an entire work is acceptable so long as attribution is affixed. Others would place the boundary well within what is usually considered fair use.
The challenge becomes to strike a balance and set some kind of guideline that is compatible with copyright law, acceptable under the current code of blogging ethics but also able to appease the concerns many bloggers share over grey sites.
A Proposed Solution
When I first looked at the problem, I was tempted to set guidelines by which a blogger should not get more than X percent of their overall content from other sites or use more than Y lines from another entry.
OH NOES! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:OH NOES! (Score:2)
Here is the link. [slashdot.org]
Re:OH NOES! (Score:2)
but then it redirected me to *ANOTHER* copy of the document, without link. But below that was another link, which redirected me to... *ANOTHER* copy of the document, without link. But below that was another link, which redirected me to... *ANOTHER* copy of the document, without link. But below that was another link, which redirected me to...
O.O GAHHH!
Re:Here's the article text... (Score:2)
It's not called 'theft' (Score:2)
The new "Reader's Digest"? (Score:4, Interesting)
But there are 2 ways to do it: Summing up the content and providing a link, or ripping a few lines out of context and then mentioning in the fine print where they're from.
While the first is something I do agree with, the second stinks of "I don't have content but I want visitors, but if I hand out my sources my visitors might go there instead of to me."
So while I'm all for gathering info and making it available to your readers, I'm also very much against the "Readers Digest" approach: Snipping out what I deem valuable, copying it to my page and giving half-hearted credit to the real author. Linking is cool. Copy-paste-blogging is just lame.
And I'd really wish this message could be sent to those who do it just that way.
Re:The new "Reader's Digest"? (Score:5, Interesting)
So while I'm all for gathering info and making it available to your readers, I'm also very much against the "Readers Digest" approach: Snipping out what I deem valuable, copying it to my page and giving half-hearted credit to the real author. Linking is cool. Copy-paste-blogging is just lame."
Yes, some bloggers do the equivalent of e-mail threads where they copy an entire piece, blockquote it and then add one or two sentences additionally. That's stupid.
But there are reasons to quote extensively from materials provided you're offering extensive commentary in return (and giving the proper credit up front to the author you're quoting from).
1. Summing up the content is not always that easy to do. I've seen plenty of mainstream media reports where the two paragraph summary completely misrepresents what was actually said. Where possible, I try to quote as extensively as possible precisely to avoid the appearance of mischaracterizing someone's argument.
2. Linking is great but my experience in about 10 years of writing for my own web site is that about 80% of the things you link to will be 404 within two years. Not to mention sites like the BBC's where if you go back to a story a couple years later it will likely have been completely rewritten without any sort of notice that changes were made post-publication to the text.
Re:The new "Reader's Digest"? (Score:2)
There's a really great article about just what you're talking about over at...
Oh wait, that site no longer exists. The content has been retracted by the copyright holder.
How many web sites do you suppose will continue to host content for the entire duration of the copyright period? After the expiration of which, we'll be a
Re:The new "Reader's Digest"? (Score:2)
And yes, having the original article at hand saves you from history being rewritten. But until it is so, credits where credits are due. If and only if the original changes it's time to rewrite your own article, stating that THERE was the original content, the original content changed, HERE is what it was like, now, reader, pick for yourself who you prefer to believe, me or them.
W
How ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
For example:
Sometimes the block of text is preceeded by "from the article:", but half the time, it is presented as comments from the story submitter, and the Story Approvers (I refuse to call them editors) do absolutely squat to correct it.
Re:How ironic (Score:2)
Quoting is good! (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, for your post to have any value today, just quoting isn't enough. At that point, it may as well be a link. You have to provide some commentary, maybe your opinion, maybe additional information, or maybe you're just using the quote as a springboard to go off on your own topic.
It comes down to a balance: are the quotes there to support and/or provide context for your own words? Are they there as a summary so that someone wandering by a year from now knows what people are talking about? Or is it little more than an unauthorized mirror?
Re:Quoting is good! [Cache of link] (Score:2)
The fix is silly (Score:5, Interesting)
Bzzzzt! (Score:5, Funny)
Its not plagiarism then is it?
- Whiney Mac Fanboy
(If you get the joke, you'll mod this up)
Less corruption (Score:3, Interesting)
Especially if the source is attributed, I have no problem with block quoting the predecessor source.
Re:Less corruption (Score:2)
People don't play it anymore. There's a new game, where one person yells at another person through a box and the 2nd person hears something totally different. It's called Cellphone. Or drive-through. I hate those games.
Re:Less corruption (Score:2)
I have no problems with attributed blockquotes - but the game of 'telephone' is really, really annoyi
It is a sin to bear false witniss (Score:2)
So I don't know why a website would be devoted to doing it.
Re:It is a sin to bear false witniss (Score:2)
More disturbing to me is that apparently websites have souls and can sin. Does that mean the messiah might be a dotcom?
I _request_ to be plagiarized (Score:3, Interesting)
For me as a writer, I love to know that people are reading me and replying to me -- that is my "profit" in the short term -- reader input. I tend to make up my own words that I write with, in order to see who might be copying me fully. I then look at what people say about their "writings", too. One such word I created was unanimocracy, but I've invented a few other phrases that are easily searched, too.
I believe the best way to "fix" plagiarism isn't to make it more illegal or immoral, but to work on a free market and open system where content creators can submit their creations to be cataloged as "the first." Let others copy it, but Google or another toolbar can easily flag a new creation as "very similar to another." Imagine if the Google toolbar had a "% of originality" for every site you visit (or every paragraph to highlight with your mouse). This could work for lyrics, guitar tabs, writings, opinion, news articles, etc.
Plagiarism is "OK" is some circles -- do a Google News search and see how many big named media outlets just regurgitate each others' news. Boring. Bloggers do the same thing, but many put a unique spin on the original writer's ideas.
I love when people plagiarize me. In the long run it builds my credibility even if they don't reference me as the original writer. I'd rather find free market solutions (such as the one I outlined above) rather than find penalties for the copying. If someone discovers that the person they respect didn't write the content on their own, the market fixes this by making the reader not read the plagiariser anymore. Easy solution.
In the long run, trying to protect your creative works will be a losing process. I use my previous creations to gain new customers who appreciate the information that I don't share. That is the product/service I sell, and I use my years of writing to show a history of original opinion and beliefs. Anything I write for public consumption is merely a marketing tool to get people to hire me for real face-time -- I could care less if someone else found a better way to make money with my thoughts. Most of my thoughts are based on a lifetime of reading and thinking about what others say.
My blog network forum is based completely on the comments of others -- I even pay my readers who give me the best comments. Their input on my writings is what gives me MORE information to sell at a higher price to those willing to pay for my knowledge. Why should I stop others from using my works to create new opinions that I can learn from?
My Own Personal Thoughts On The Subject... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:My Own Personal Thoughts On The Subject... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I _request_ to be plagiarized (Score:2)
Could this be the fact that there are really just a few major media producers (Reuters, AP, UPI), and a whole lot of "middlemen" that buy that content wholesale and deliver it to the consumer (with the mark-up being advertising)?
If this theory is true, and I suspect that to a large part it is, then "customer-facing" media outlets like CNN, Fox, NBC, etc., are all really j
Not so sure (Score:3, Interesting)
In the long run, trying to protect your creative works will be a losing process. I use my previous creations to gain new customers who appreciate the information that
Oh yeah this is such a big problem!! (Score:2)
We need a way to stop these text pirates. How about replacing the easily copy-pasted HTML currently used by most sites wi
Eh (Score:2)
Competition? (Score:3, Insightful)
First off, if they're attributing their source, it is not plagarism.
It seems like the media might get pissed off that bloggers will extract the most important information from articles and post that with some (maybe-not-so-) insightful commentary, rendering the rest of their article impotent. For instance, when I read the newspaper in the morning, I've noticed that I can get most of the details I want without ever having to turn the newspaper page--it's always in front (and they designed it this way). Sure, occasionally there are some details I want further in the article, and if it's a good article on a good subject, I'll keep reading. Anyway, in a sense, these bloggers are becoming competition for journalists using the journalist's material. I feel that if this is the case, journalists need to improve so that most or all of their articles are relevant instead of puffing up their word count.
But, I personally don't see bloggers as competition, even if journalists do. In general, journalists provide fact, and the blogger provides opinion based around the fact. Sure, there are many OpEd pieces in newspapers, but the blogger is merely presenting their point of view on the original text (even if they can't assemble enough coherent thought to "outquote" the original article).
RepublicanBlogs (Score:2, Flamebait)
The worst part, is that they link to themselves over and over and over and over and over and over worse than a hick family tree were all the grandmas grandpas, children and grand children descended fromt he same 2 people.
Take a recent look on google for "iran dress code" and you will see hundreds of Republican blogs on the subject, all citing other repu
Re:RepublicanBlogs (Score:5, Informative)
It is all apart of the demagoguery used by both sides.
Re:RepublicanBlogs (Score:2)
Re:RepublicanBlogs (Score:3, Funny)
Blogs (Score:5, Interesting)
First site:
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/05/19/cuba_switchin g_to_gn.html [boingboing.net]
Which leads me to: http://linux.slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org] And the only link out of those that's still up is http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23300 [theinquirer.net], which contains only: So all this plagiarised summarisation bullshit leads me only to http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050517/tc_afp/cubacAnd before I know it, 15 minutes are gone and all I've learned is that 1500 computers have been switched. Thank you plagiarism. And the beatiful irony of it all is that I'm contributing to it with this post!
Re:Blogs (Score:3, Insightful)
If they had have plagiarised they would have copy and pasted the entire article, and not attributed the source. You would have gotten all the information and would not have seen the 404 error. Yeah they probably should have all linked to the yahoo article, but that wouldn't change the fact that yahoo took down the page.
You should be saying damn you for not plagiarising, or even better, damn you yahoo for removin
Re:Blogs (Score:2)
When I say 'research session', I mean preliminary work gathering info for other stuff, not that I've published something.
Like I'd be posting to fucking Slashdot if I was at the level of publishing research. I'd be too busy attending secret Illuminati meetings, or holding long smirking sessions while I sipped at an expensive bottle of wine. You know how easy those ri
Re:Blogs (Score:2)
Why the fuck would I care what order those things were published in? I'm just some nobody searching on Google, following a trail. It makes no damn difference to me that some of those links are newer than others, because I'm looking at them all at the same time.
But I'm sure these philosophical debates about temporal kajiggers are above someone anonymously posting vague rebuttals to Slashdot posts.
Plagarism? New Viswanathan Book (Score:3, Funny)
Ironically enough (Score:2)
Actually, what's really ironic about that is that it's under the section "Your Rights Online".
Self Plagiarism (Score:3, Interesting)
http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~roigm/plagiarism/Self%
Even if you are the author, you may not own the copyright. This is true for journals and major publishers, so you are not supposed to recycle text.
It's cultural - and hardly limited to bloggers (Score:2)
That said, by-and-large, folks that care are saavy enough to filter sites that have original and interesting content versus ones that consolidate (or even steal) news or ideas. (And they often choose the latter for convenience and they don't care).
Besides, if I'm reading a blog on one site and they quote another one extensiv
Aggregation vs. mirroring (Score:2)
But the real reason why people go to aggregator sites is because they are often more interesting than the sites they quote. I almost always at least check out the sites referenced by interesting articles on aggregator sites. If the aggregated article is representative of the content, then I end up reading more, and often the blog ends up on my regular list of bookmarks, and I
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Scholarship's End and Low Self Esteem (Score:2, Interesting)
Reason to quote large portions (Score:4, Informative)
I'm in the habit of quoting large portions of articles, or even the entire article, for a purely practical reason: the mutability of Web pages. I've lost track of how often I've made a comment about something in an article, only to have a lot of people asking what I was talking about because the article said no such thing. On looking at the article again, the passage I was referring to had either been removed or altered to say something it hadn't said originally. The only way I have to combat this is to preserve a copy of the article as I originally read it in a place not subject to editing by the article's owner.
I'd note this after-the-fact rewriting tends to be most common where the original article contained egregiously and provably incorrect statements and the authors got called on the matter and now want to never have said that (as opposed to wanting to admit they mis-stated).
Re:Err... (Score:2)
Re:Err... (Score:2)
Re:Bloggers hell, MSM! (Score:3, Informative)
"When a news story breaks, and you see a report raw from a wire service feed, watch as practically every news outlet copies and pastes that report verbatim."
Perhaps you're joking, and it flew right over my head. But FWIW, news outlets such as newspapers pay the wire services for the priveledge of doing so. There's a pre-existing arrangement, and this is how the wire services make their money.
Re:Bloggers hell, MSM! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Just a thought (Score:2)
I agree. I haven't done any research, but I wonder if there's a standard, acceptable method to reference a blog in a bibliography, etc.?
Re:Just a thought (Score:2)
It is for those that want it to be. Those that prefer their ideas to be presented in context, or under circumstances they think are essential to their continued success in producing such stuff in the first place may have other thoughts on the matter. So, just plain walking away with the material, more or less in full, in order to flesh out your own web site and attract more people (and collect a few more advertising pennies) is transparently p