I’ve noticed quite often as I read more blogs, that people are blogging on another person’s blog on an original post… Why do they not go to the bother to credit the source?
Here is one example from Xplana that not only mangles the credit, but does a crappy link job.
The title of this blog “RSS feeds from Learning Object Repositories – Known Examples” correcltly links to the source post at Scott Leslie’s EdTechPost, but why do they give blog credit to David Carter-Tod’s Serious Instructional Technology? Yes indeed, David did blog on this, but it is a scant entry where the commentary is a one sentence quote.
And what is even sloppier, is that the Xplana blog does not even bother to link to the original posting in SIT but to the front entrance, where the content no longer sits.
David and Scott do excellent work, and go to efforts to blog the sources.
Maybe I am still a blogger newbie, but blog the source not the annotation of the annotatation of ….
Alan,
I try most of the time to get this right, but I’ll admit sometimes to just not remembering where I clicked a link from. I have about twenty browser windows open right now, not including my RSS reader and it’s hard to keep track sometimes.
David
Hi Alan, I like how you titled this ‘blog etiquette’ as this is very much like other aspects of netiquette – an evolving set of conventions that people choose to adopt in order to get along and make their medium work. And this particular set of conventions is definitely still evolving – a quick google of ‘blog etiquette’ (http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=blog+etiquette&spell=1) returns 9,210 entries.
For my own part, when I’m posting something I’ve seen in another person’s blog I usually include two references – in the link I point directly to item, and then I usually add something like “via [url]” or “as seen in [url]” in the body or description of the post. And if I quote someone else’s post, I do so in quotations and usually add italics to differentiate it from stuff I’ve written. I’ve seen lots of different ways in which people do this, and alter mine as I find some form that I enhances some of the dynamics that I think are at play in blogs. And I think this last part is important – the netiquette that evolves around blogs will very much determine what the blogosphere actually is, and so these kinds of discussions are important even though to begin with they seem like so much personal opinion. Cheers, Scott.
The nature of blogs and RSS being what it is allows for, and almost encourages, loose attribution. Proper crediting the source should be encouraged, but I don’t see any value coming from policing this. Setting examples, yes. Rules, no.
I fully accept the loose netowrk of blog to blog communication Randy (and expect to soon be stung by my own bad manners), but never advocated for police action.
Just thought it was worth pointing out. Consider me on the side of setting by example, and aim to provide links worth clicking…