How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food • Hacker News Board

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#111

Post by nickbauman » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 3:57 PM UTC

eridius wrote: post #85

nickbauman wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi I work for BuzzFeed engineering, but this is just me talking, not my company. The guy that started Tasty uses an empirical technique he devised in-house to come up with recipes people love. Wish I could say more than that. But I believe the "recipe space" he explores can come up with recipes that can at times look like previously published recipes. There are only so many combinations of ingredients that will click…

Hi Nick, I get the impulse to defend the company you work for. It's commendable. But if you're embarrassed to see your employer be accused of plagiarism, it would be a lot more effective for you to pressure people internally to start providing proper attribution than to write comments like this. Internal pressure can often accomplish things that external pressure can't.

Good point. However, BuzzFeed's record on plagiarism is also being painted here with a very broad brush. The real occurrences of plagiarism at BuzzFeed is not out-of-keeping with normal attrition at major media dailies in the US media. Every news organization has had issues with it at some point or another. BuzzFeed is no different.

That said there's definitely always room for improvement.

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#112

Post by eridius » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 4:56 PM UTC

nickbauman wrote: post #111

eridius wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Nick, I get the impulse to defend the company you work for. It's commendable. But if you're embarrassed to see your employer be accused of plagiarism, it would be a lot more effective for you to pressure people internally to start providing proper attribution than to write comments like this. Internal pressure can often accomplish things that external pressure can't.

Good point. However, BuzzFeed's record on plagiarism is also being painted here with a very broad brush. The real occurrences of plagiarism at BuzzFeed is not out-of-keeping with normal attrition at major media dailies in the US media. Every news organization has had issues with it at some point or another. BuzzFeed is no different. That said there's definitely always room for improvement.

I'm familiar with BuzzFeed's other "articles", and I've seen plenty of attribution there (e.g. articles that basically come straight from reddit, with each bullet point attributed to a reddit username, that always amuses me). I haven't actually watched any of the Tasty videos, so I haven't had a chance to see for myself if and when they get attributed, but if Kenji López-Alt is raging about Tasty on Twitter, then I have to assume there's a bit of a problem there.

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#113

Post by nickbauman » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 6:05 PM UTC

eridius wrote: post #112

nickbauman wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. However, BuzzFeed's record on plagiarism is also being painted here with a very broad brush. The real occurrences of plagiarism at BuzzFeed is not out-of-keeping with normal attrition at major media dailies in the US media. Every news organization has had issues with it at some point or another. BuzzFeed is no different. That said there's definitely always room for improvement.

I'm familiar with BuzzFeed's other "articles", and I've seen plenty of attribution there (e.g. articles that basically come straight from reddit, with each bullet point attributed to a reddit username, that always amuses me). I haven't actually watched any of the Tasty videos, so I haven't had a chance to see for myself if and when they get attributed, but if Kenji López-Alt is raging about Tasty on Twitter, then I h…

However, when he first saw BuzzFeed’s recipe, published on their food site called Tasty, in May of this year, he said the ingredient list was nearly identical “with a few tweaks”. — Kenji López-Alt

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/buzzfeed-ac...

You can't copyright a list of ingredients.

https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2015/03/24/recipes-copyright...

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#114

Post by eridius » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 6:14 PM UTC

nickbauman wrote: post #113

eridius wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm familiar with BuzzFeed's other "articles", and I've seen plenty of attribution there (e.g. articles that basically come straight from reddit, with each bullet point attributed to a reddit username, that always amuses me). I haven't actually watched any of the Tasty videos, so I haven't had a chance to see for myself if and when they get attributed, but if Kenji López-Alt is raging about Tasty on Twitter, then I h…

However, when he first saw BuzzFeed’s recipe, published on their food site called Tasty, in May of this year, he said the ingredient list was nearly identical “with a few tweaks”. — Kenji López-Alt http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/buzzfeed-ac... You can't copyright a list of ingredients. https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2015/03/24/recipes-copyright...

And that's why he's not suing them for copyright violation. But just because something isn't a copyright violation doesn't mean it's not plagiarism, and doesn't mean that you shouldn't provide attribution.

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#115

Post by zaroth » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 1:26 AM UTC

burkaman wrote: post #107

zaroth wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's ethically wrong to take something in the public domain which holds no license or copyright whatsoever, and use it without attribution. If snippets of the video were direct cuts from another show, that's a different story. But making a dish yourself and filming it is your own creation, I don't see why you have to thank anyone for it.

It is. It's benefiting from someone else's work without thanking them. This is basic elementary school ethics. It's equivalent to performing a symphony, but not mentioning the music was written by Beethoven. Not illegal, but wrong, even if you don't explicitly claim it's your own work.

No, it's not. A symphony can be copyrighted.

It's the same as calculating force equals mass times acceleration, without thanking Newton every time. That's an example (natural law) which is always and immediately public domain, the same as recipes.

Re: How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food

#116

Post by burkaman » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 3:32 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #115

burkaman wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. It's benefiting from someone else's work without thanking them. This is basic elementary school ethics. It's equivalent to performing a symphony, but not mentioning the music was written by Beethoven. Not illegal, but wrong, even if you don't explicitly claim it's your own work.

No, it's not. A symphony can be copyrighted. It's the same as calculating force equals mass times acceleration, without thanking Newton every time. That's an example (natural law) which is always and immediately public domain, the same as recipes.

But Beethoven symphonies are not copyrighted, they've been in the public domain for centuries. Is it ok if you use Beethoven?

f=ma is an interesting example. I still think you should mention that it's Newton's Second Law if you're teaching it, and I doubt there's a textbook out there that doesn't. If Newton had discovered this law last year and you wrote a book about it without mentioning him, that would be deeply unethical.