Comments on: What is Blogging Etiquette?

By: Rajan Sodhi

Rajan Sodhi — Fri, 04 May 2007 17:50:17 +0000

Hi Grigor, thanks for weighing in. I would agree with what you say, and of course, no one should ever violate copyrights. There are many who do it intentionally, and many others blogging who think they are doing the right thing, until told otherwise. I think it’s safe to say, it’s always best to err cautiously, so as not to make others feel violated.

By: Grigor

Grigor — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:17:00 +0000

Rajan,
I would just comment a part of your post.
I wouldn’t say that there is a confusion in blogosphere, but only a diversity of opinions, which is a wonderful thing. Ambiguity should be a normal state in an open society as blogosphere is and there is nothing to be afraid of.
On the contrary, I have to admit that I’m scared of possibility that some “central figure” prescribes the rules, no matter what they look like and even if it is mighty Technorati.
However, I don’t think that because of our right to our own opinion we can violate other’s rights, including “copy rights”.

By: Rajan Sodhi

Rajan Sodhi — Thu, 03 May 2007 23:56:38 +0000

Ron, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Much appreciated. – Rajan

By: rshevlin

rshevlin — Thu, 03 May 2007 23:52:14 +0000

Rajan –

As a fellow WordPress blogger, I often see your posts in Tag Surfer, which is how I came upon this one. I can’t say I know what is or isn’t blog etiquette, but since “traffic” seems to be the currency of the Internet, you would appear to be “stealing” traffic away from Mr. Stelzner by reposting his entire content.

And why do that in the first place? To save your readers a click? Not a compelling argument.

I like Mr. Stelzner’s term for the action — “content-jacking”. Personally, I call the people the who do it “regurgibloggers” — because all they do is regurgitate other people’s posts. Whether or not content-jacking is good etiquette or not, from what I’ve read of yours, you don’t appear to be a regurgiblogger, and I don’t think you want to be put into that category.

By: Michael Stelzner

Michael Stelzner — Thu, 03 May 2007 22:05:25 +0000

Rajan – Let me note for the record that your actions show class. – Mike

By: Rajan Sodhi

Rajan Sodhi — Thu, 03 May 2007 22:02:00 +0000

Michael, thanks for your input. I don’t consider this a can of worms at all. I did read your post on “contentjacking” prior to writing this post. Opening things up for discussion and dialogue is a good thing. As I mentioned here, there is a lot of ambiguity in blogging. You have stated clearly your point and it’s been registered. I’m not debating whether you are right or wrong, you can do that on your blog. Mine is more of statement from what I see happening in the blogosphere. Yes, there are people out there with malicious intentions. I get that. There are others who aren’t so sure what best practices are. For my part, to be safe, I’ll only be showing excerpts going forward of stories I like. As you can see here, there are no banner ads on this blog – I do this because I enjoy sharing good information and exchanging knowledge.

By: Michael Stelzner

Michael Stelzner — Thu, 03 May 2007 20:46:05 +0000

Thanks for this post and for your response to my request.

I can tell you that reposting an entire article is not blog etiquette.

In fact, we are debating this issue right now on my blog: http://www.writingwhitepapers.com/blog/2007/05/03/contentjacking-the-new-cyber-crime/

The term I like to use is contentjacking.

The fact is that taking the work of someone else and republishing it in its entirety is simply copyright infringement.

This is the same as taking an article from a magazine or the pages of a book and republishing them without permission of the author.

It does not really matter if you cite the source.

Just because you see it done does not mean it is right.

The fact is that it is plagiarism plane and simple.

The proper thing to do is to excerpt parts of an article, almost like a review.

My 2 cents.

Thanks for opening this can of worms.

Mike