by Stop Mike Lupica on August 26 at 7:22PM
Interesting issue that arose in my Jets post, as I tried to credit the Revis contract breakdown to the blogs I found it on properly. At the risk of pulling an MC Bias (which isn't a bad thing, unless I embarrass myself by doing a poor imitation), here's the background:
Deadspin had a link today in their blogdome feature to this post by I Want To Be A Sports Agent on Revis' contract. Pretty simple, eh? Well, the thing is... their post is really "featuring" a lot of information from Schwartz & Feinsod's Football post on this topic. A lot of info. Which is fine - there's nothing wrong with what Sports Agent did... they properly credited, quoted, and linked to the S&F Football post. They also made it clear that they thought highly of the article by S&F, and even made it supremely clear in the title of their post: "Kudos, Schwartz and Feinsod". There is absolutely nothing at fault with what Sports Agent did, in my opinion.
However, I am confused about the wording of Deadspin's link on this topic; why would they link to Sports Agent's post instead of just directly linking to S&F's post? I am literally asking; I have no idea. It seems to me that Sports Agent's post did not present or add a lot of fresh information to S&F's original post; in fact, at least 75% of the words/sentences are directly quoted from S&F, and in my estimation, about 80-90% of the actual content. Again, I think there is nothing bad about that - you see a great article/post somewhere, you do a post about to bring people's attention to it, right? I've done that before - I've done posts that have literally been chunks of stuff that HCIC wrote about, or TSF, or Modi, or Posting&Toasting, etc. Big deal, right?
But shouldn't Deadspin have just given the link directly to S&F? Wouldn't the proper way to credit the article be to say (as I did in my Jets post) "...Schwartz and Feinsod (found via I Wanna Be A Sports Agent)"?
Opinions? Thoughts?
One more Blogdome example, from earlier this week: On this past Monday's Blogdome ("More Boxer Than Rapper"), the lead link was to this 100% Injury Rate post on Floyd Mayweather's new rap video. Some of you who read this site regularly might be familiar with that Mayweather video - we also did a post on it Sunday night, too. As I wrote in that post, right at the beginning of the post: "I found Floyd "Money" Mayweather's rap "video" on You Tube thanks to a poster at Yardbarker named "Rubberguard" (I would link to his blog, but I'm not sure if he has one)
Now, I'm not saying 100% Injury Rate found this YouTube video that way. It's quite possible that they actually searched You Tube for Floyd Mayweather, and stumbled upon his video. It's just more likely that they, too, saw it on the front page of Yardbarker. We don't know for sure - you'll have to ask them if you want their answer.
But let's assume, for the purpose of our second hypothetical blogger ethics question, that they found it the same way we did - via this Rubberguard post. First things first - we realize that we didn't link to Rubberguard in our original post, either. But we did try to acknowledge how we found the video. It's worth mentioning because when The Basketball Jones finds a great You Tube like Shaq playing pickup ball in China, everyone is careful to properly cite their website - Deadspin, True Hoops, et al. Would it be the case if Skeets wasn't such a well-known blogger?
What's the ethical thing to do in those cases? If I find a You Tube on another site, do I have to credit it? Should I expect credit if I "unearth" a gem of a YouTube (unlikely; the closest I've come is Roger Clemens coaching first base at a little league game).
Or is it just whatever goes? Any opinions either agreeing or disagreeing out there?
Leave a comment
Deadspin had a link today in their blogdome feature to this post by I Want To Be A Sports Agent on Revis' contract. Pretty simple, eh? Well, the thing is... their post is really "featuring" a lot of information from Schwartz & Feinsod's Football post on this topic. A lot of info. Which is fine - there's nothing wrong with what Sports Agent did... they properly credited, quoted, and linked to the S&F Football post. They also made it clear that they thought highly of the article by S&F, and even made it supremely clear in the title of their post: "Kudos, Schwartz and Feinsod". There is absolutely nothing at fault with what Sports Agent did, in my opinion.
However, I am confused about the wording of Deadspin's link on this topic; why would they link to Sports Agent's post instead of just directly linking to S&F's post? I am literally asking; I have no idea. It seems to me that Sports Agent's post did not present or add a lot of fresh information to S&F's original post; in fact, at least 75% of the words/sentences are directly quoted from S&F, and in my estimation, about 80-90% of the actual content. Again, I think there is nothing bad about that - you see a great article/post somewhere, you do a post about to bring people's attention to it, right? I've done that before - I've done posts that have literally been chunks of stuff that HCIC wrote about, or TSF, or Modi, or Posting&Toasting, etc. Big deal, right?
But shouldn't Deadspin have just given the link directly to S&F? Wouldn't the proper way to credit the article be to say (as I did in my Jets post) "...Schwartz and Feinsod (found via I Wanna Be A Sports Agent)"?
Opinions? Thoughts?
One more Blogdome example, from earlier this week: On this past Monday's Blogdome ("More Boxer Than Rapper"), the lead link was to this 100% Injury Rate post on Floyd Mayweather's new rap video. Some of you who read this site regularly might be familiar with that Mayweather video - we also did a post on it Sunday night, too. As I wrote in that post, right at the beginning of the post: "I found Floyd "Money" Mayweather's rap "video" on You Tube thanks to a poster at Yardbarker named "Rubberguard" (I would link to his blog, but I'm not sure if he has one)
Now, I'm not saying 100% Injury Rate found this YouTube video that way. It's quite possible that they actually searched You Tube for Floyd Mayweather, and stumbled upon his video. It's just more likely that they, too, saw it on the front page of Yardbarker. We don't know for sure - you'll have to ask them if you want their answer.
But let's assume, for the purpose of our second hypothetical blogger ethics question, that they found it the same way we did - via this Rubberguard post. First things first - we realize that we didn't link to Rubberguard in our original post, either. But we did try to acknowledge how we found the video. It's worth mentioning because when The Basketball Jones finds a great You Tube like Shaq playing pickup ball in China, everyone is careful to properly cite their website - Deadspin, True Hoops, et al. Would it be the case if Skeets wasn't such a well-known blogger?
What's the ethical thing to do in those cases? If I find a You Tube on another site, do I have to credit it? Should I expect credit if I "unearth" a gem of a YouTube (unlikely; the closest I've come is Roger Clemens coaching first base at a little league game).
Or is it just whatever goes? Any opinions either agreeing or disagreeing out there?
Leave a comment
|
3 Comments
Comments
Signal to Noise
said
I suspect it has to a lot to do with whom sends the story to Deadspin first.
I am honestly not completely clear on blog ethics but want to learn more. I am sure that I have breached etiquette although I always try to credit sources and sub-sources. Once it gets past "a link to a link" it does get a bit unwieldy.
Other times, I will write something that I THINK is original only to google afterwards and find that somebody was at least partially on the same wavelength. I may try to incorporate them if I can do so within the flow.
I am sure that there is a rule book out there on this shit somewhere... and you probably have it Lupica
The first blogger issue does bother me, because it makes blogs look cheap. If all I do is take a SML post and say "SML is so funny! Like here..."quote part of story" and I couldn't stop laughing when he said "quote more here", I don't like that as a post. It's not from an ethical standpoint as much as from a creativity standpoint that I disapprove, though.