quotation confusion

[TEG]

Holy plagiarism, Batman!!

Smart EV with a Tesla Drivetrain - smart USA insider
Smart EV with a Tesla drivetrain. - Smart Car of America Forums
Smart EV with a Tesla drivetrain. - Smart Car of America Forums

This guy verbatim copies the ABG article. His only edit is to change "our" to "my", thus proclaiming to be a personal friend. As far as I know, I've never met the dude!

How much of that ABG story would need to be rewritten before it was OK? If it was almost entirely new, but kept a few key sentences and the link to the video would that still be "bad"?

We think we know what is OK based on "seat of the pants" expectations, but I don't think any of us are really experts in this area.

 

[doug]

Um, you seem unable to detect sarcasm.

Anyhow, it's not that gray. It's called indicating quotation and giving attribution.
This kind of wholesale lifting is nothing new and this instance isn't particularly unique. I'm just pointing out that through this guy's sole edit, he claims to know me, which is untrue.

 

[JRP3]

It's not how much is quoted, it's quoting without linking the original that's a real problem. Plus altering the text isn't exactly kosher. On the other hand Doug has a new friend :wink:

 

[TEG]

Teslamotorsclub is a link emporium of sorts.
What do we call ourselves? We aren't "Bloggers" without our own blog, right?
We aren't "Reporters" without press credentials...
Perhaps there should be some other term like "linksters"?

That stuff on the Smart forum was definitely uncool but there are other things I see that do seem almost a gray area in-between. You know, when I found out that Yahoonews links seemed to expire rather quickly I started looking for other places the same stories were published. Searching on some phrases from a random story, I find all sorts of similar stories in mainstream places said to be authored by different people. I guess I don't know how it works, but it seems there is some legitimate channel to take stories from AP or PR-newswire and lightly rewrite them and call them your own.

Do you remember this?:
MediaShift . AP Badly Mistaken on Drudge Retort | PBS

Apparently there is some rule about not using more than 80 words from someone else's story...?

Did we ever get an answer if it was OK to post TV screencaps from the Tonight Show?

When TM puts out press releases like from the Model S intro... You see all those rewrites of the press release. The details get "swirled around" and in some cases made innaccurate.

Are you suggesting that ABG should send that Robert Basil guy a note asking him to remove his non-attributed postings?

 

[TEG]

My gray area point was that even small excerpts credited can annoy some entities if they think that the excerpt was enough that the reader (of the excerpt) saw all they needed to know and so didn't click the link and follow to whatever advertising was at the other side. When we post links here I don't think there is any hard rule about how much is OK to excerpt. Posting a whole story verbatim is probably too much in most cases. Posting a sentence or even a paragraph seems OK most of the time, but that is just gut feeling. What about adding emphasis such as making bold, or using italics in someone else's excerpt to call out specific details?

 

[TEG]

I guess it is about time to quote something!
AP Articles Banned From Conservative Politics Today - Conservative Politics Today

...In a heavy-handed move that affects bloggers everywhere, the AP is attempting to set guidelines for bloggers that go above and beyond all U.S. Copyright infringement and Fair Use Laws. The AP, one of the nations largest news outlets, sent a DMCA letter to The Drudge Retort owner, Roger Cadenhead, (not to be confused with the Drudge Report), demanding he remove seven items from his website, that contained quotes from AP articles. The quotes ranged in length from 33 to 79 words. According to AP Vice President Jim Kennedy they will issue guidelines telling bloggers what is acceptable and what isn’t. They will “attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.’s copyright.”...

 

[TEG]

It's not how much is quoted, it's quoting without linking the original that's a real problem...

Apparently the AP would like us to pay by the word when excerpting their stories!:
Excerpts are priced by the word.

I started down this whole tangent of "what is the excerpting policy" when we were told that we had to link back to the flickr source page when posting links to flickr pictures, apparently because of flickr policy. There must be a million policies on excerpting or hyperlinking out there.

 

[doug]

Dude. So I guess the humor of the situation was lost on TEG.

What do we call ourselves? We aren't "Bloggers" without our own blog, right?
We aren't "Reporters" without press credentials...
Perhaps there should be some other term like "linksters"?

This is a forum. We're called forum members. Could even call ourselves club members due to the forum's title. Club members sounds rather folksy.

Yes these off topic posts will have to be cleaned up and tossed in some "ramblings" thread. I'm just getting home and am too tired to deal with it now.

 

[JRP3]

Sometimes TEG over thinks things :wink: My personal feeling is link to what you quote, or at least put it in a quote box so we know it's a quote, if you change wording or meaning point it out, and until we get a notice from someone to stop, carry on as usual. Now we can let Doug clean this mess up.

 

[domenick]

I took the liberty of leaving a comment containing photo attribution and a link to the original ABG post. Hopefully they'll understand that they should have included those.

I think the way our comments link back to the original article and the inclusion of some quotes on the TMC forum are respectful to the originator of the content.

 

[doug]

When we post links here I don't think there is any hard rule about how much is OK to excerpt. Posting a whole story verbatim is probably too much in most cases. Posting a sentence or even a paragraph seems OK most of the time, but that is just gut feeling. What about adding emphasis such as making bold, or using italics in someone else's excerpt to call out specific details?

It's not that complicated.

• Indicate quotation - either by quotation marks, the forum

  codes, or sometimes italics.
  [*]Give attribution - for our purposes a link is easiest, but other ways might be fine too.
  [*] It's ok to add emphasis with bold, etc. If it's not obvious what you did, you might say, "emphasis mine".
  [*] Copying a whole article is discouraged. (Press releases are different, since the author intends for the whole content to be copied or even edited into something that sounds like a news story.)
  [*] If you feel uncomfortable quoting something, then don't.

Honestly, we haven't had that much of a problem here, except with those who turned out to be trolls. This is not a commercial blog with paid staff writers. This is a relatively small discussion forum. We as individuals make a common sense judgment call about what's appropriate and a good faith effort to credit the originators of content.

So the Smart USA blog post (copied by the "author" into Smart forums) neither indicated quotation, nor provided attribution. He even made an edit (changing "our" to "my") in an effort to pass the writing off as his own work. This is a clear case of plagiarism. But again this is fairly common on the net, and I have no intention spending a lot of energy on it. The only reason I posted it to the Smart EV thread (and I can't believe I have to explain this again) is because with his minor edit, he also claims to be my friend. Which was mildly humorous.

Btw, TEG is up for the vfx award.

 

[TEG]

So I guess the humor of the situation was lost on TEG.

No, I can see see the humor in what he did. (Being so absurdly transparent). But I also think the ABG author ( Domenick Yoney ) might not be so amused.

Btw, TEG is up for the vfx award.

Yeah, the side of my head is still sore from your boot

 

[doug]

Looks like you edited down your posts to be more sensible, which I guess is a good thing.

No, I can see see the humor in what he did. (Being so absurdly transparent).

And yet you miss the point. I was explaining why my post (which I now regret) was moderately on topic and your multipost conversation with yourself was not.

Please try to stay on topic.

 

[TEG]

Please try to stay on topic.

Sure thing, boss.