171–180 of 326 posts
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Maybe we can start by not referring to a lot of tech blogs as journalism. Some are, but most aren't - including many that would like us to think they are.
Then we'd have to stop referring to a lot of what goes on TV, radio, and in the newspapers as journalism.
This isn't plagiarism. It's laughable to say that it was, they cited him. I know this is an insanely simple comment that will lead people to think I didn't read this conversation or really think about this topic, but I did. And it's not. The internet is ridiculous sometimes.
Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…
> We work immensely had to product original content as well as link to original sources when deserved...this case was absolutely no different. Zee, let me tell you something. When you lie, do not lie in a way that can be disproven by math. I mean, it was easy, so easy for me to take five minutes to plug in the article text to a difference calculator and find the result. And here's the outcome: There is a 58.632778264…
This is just another one of those, "A young CEO with too much balls and not enough brains shoots his mouth off, revealing to all that he is not a Good Person." Of course, CEOs not being Good People is nothing new, but the refusal to even try to pretend to be one is something that I think really angers people.
Update: see this comment on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3972875 Zee from TNW here. Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here. I honestly have absolutely no idea what we should have done differently here to illustrate an interesting fact with our readers and reference the original source (we did that twice in the article...even with his full name (a screenshot of which…
Completely frank and sincere feedback:
1. The two paragraphs taken from the source should have been block-quoted
2. The first paragraph of the story should have established source
3. The first link should have been to the source, not your own blog
4. The links used to backup the story should have been part of the blockquote or via'd
5. Misuse of 'via'. You didn't find the story 'via' Joshua, rather Joshua's post was the story
or options 2:
1. You realize that this is an interesting story for your audience, you check the license of the story and if it is permissible you republish it on your blog with Joshua as the author and a link back to the original
Suggestions:
1. Have an editor check every post before it is published for fair attribution. It is common that a single person can miss an attribution in 1 out of 100 cases, but with two people checking that becomes 1 in 10,000.
2. Re-publish stories that you think may be interesting for your audience rather than re-blogging and wrapping them
3. Circulate something internally about standards of attribution and perhaps also publish a page about it on your blog with a contact email address if any problems arise.
4. Respond to criticism better, the customer is always right etc.
It is cases like this that cause the media to constantly deride blogs. I really think you should take a step back and re-evaluate your response to this, and I say that in all honesty, complete sincerity and with absolutely no disrespect (there are writers at TNW whose work I follow and enjoy and I have been a long time reader).
Zee again. Full response: http://bit.ly/JxoWae
TheNextWeb usually has plenty of good, timely posts and it'd be a shame to consider it sullied so I, and hopefully others, hope some good can come out of this drama long term. (I've been in the role of editor and got the blame for sloppy fact-checking by one of my charges; it definitely helped me get my eye back on the ball :-))
Yes, you were plagiarized. TheNextWeb was in the wrong, and they made it worse by their reaction. But I also feel that the main insights of your posts were not your own. They were that of the NY Times reporter Michael M. Grynbaum. That is, I feel the main insight of your post were two things: the doubling of tips, and the attribution of this to the buttons on the credit-card machine. Your contribution was to look up…
Regardless TNW took his article almost entirely word for word! Only two or three words were added/removed in TNW's version. This isn't about facts, it's about copy-pasting someone else's words and then sending 6 incredibly defensive and dickish tweets after othe original author complained (barely). At the end, Zee says he'll steer clear of the original author's work for fear of ridiculous accusations as if to say "yo…
I'm making a separate point, that the contribution of the article in question is minor. And that, combined with the level of outrage, just makes me a bit uneasy.
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You really don't get it do you? > If it ever does happen, I assure you that all it takes is one email to office@thenextweb.com and we'll have it resolved. I'm sure it does. But the point is that you should ensure through process and not through policy that you do not end up with other people's stuff on your site without attribution or compensation. The fact that you'll take it down to avoid further damage is not enou…
We do have processes AND policy in place to make sure this doesn't happen. But it can still happen unintentionally and when it does, we react activity and proactively.
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You really don't get it do you? > If it ever does happen, I assure you that all it takes is one email to office@thenextweb.com and we'll have it resolved. I'm sure it does. But the point is that you should ensure through process and not through policy that you do not end up with other people's stuff on your site without attribution or compensation. The fact that you'll take it down to avoid further damage is not enou…
We do have processes AND policy in place to make sure this doesn't happen. But it can still happen unintentionally and when it does, we react activity and proactively.
1) Don't do it;
2) If it occurs, fire the guy who did it;
3) Apologize and try to make it right;
4) Shut up.
You seem to find each one of those steps challenging.
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AKA: Laziness. (Edited to fix spelling pointed out by child comment. Thanks.) I don't require perfection, just competence. If you don't care enough about your output to make it easily understandable (I don't have to put effort into deciphering your words), why should I care about it?
Ironically, if you'd spell-checked your comment, you would have seen the word you were looking for was "laziness". On the other hand, there's no easy mechanical way of noticing that a small word ("have") was omitted, which is one of the typos for which Zee was being criticized. So what you did is actually lazier than what he did. But I don't look down on you for this typo either. Both your comment and Zee's are prett…
I guess I hold myself to a higher standard than you do. I have old-fashioned ideas. Writers should be competent enough in the fundamentals that even their informal remarks meet a certain standard of composition. When you are a good writer, you put the same level of care into your work regardless of the purpose. Quite frankly, a writer who thinks, "The editor will catch it," doesn't deserve to be paid for the job. It's bad craft.
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The equivalent would be cutting the credits off a movie and replacing them with release group name and scene shoutouts.
The point being, whenever there is an article about "piracy" - being this sort of generic, "victimless" action (say "crime" and people will really go apeshit on you) - and people fall over themselves to defend it, say it's not a problem, indicate that it's just a symptom and fuck the content people if they can't deal, and so on. It's interesting that when it's just one person with their own story, that is somehow clo…