May 12, 2008

I think in the age of basically instant information availability it's becoming increasingly more difficult to be completely "original" in what we say, write, publish, etc...

This whole thing seems to be a bit overblown and it is unfortunate that this has happened. I do believe in giving credit when it's due though.

**Full Disclosure**
I am a member of Ars Technica under the handle of "deadzone" and I visit the site daily, but I also visit IP Democracy daily as well.

So if MG Siegler ripped his story from The iPhone Blog, doesn't that make him a hypocrite for claiming Ars ripped him?



May 9:

The iPhone is winning at the game of Risk

http://venturebeat.com/2008/05/09/the-iphone-is-winning-at-the-game-of-risk/


But May 7:

iPhone Risk: Latin American Landslide!

http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2008/05/07/iphone-risk-latin-american-landslide/

Looks to me like MG Siegler is a hypocrite.

The incremental cost of copying web pages is 0 therefore there is nothing you can do to stop people reusing your content. Bloggers are just going to have to get creative and rethink their business model. Maybe sell T-shirts or do live blog events. At least that's what I learned from Arrington regarding the music "theft".

Nate,

Don't twist my words -- I never said that my criticism was a "mistake." I said I was prepared to accept your explanation for why Ars Technica wasn't linking back to my post because I really don't want to be a scold or accuse Ars Technica of not being forthcoming on its linking philosophy.

However, because my blog post somehow got to be a part of your Wikipedia entry, I've heard from a lot of bloggers over the years who have cited similar examples and because they emailed me directly and didn't post a comment, I didn't follow up on my original post...or really even care for that matter.

Someone emailed me this morning saying "I've been watching them reconstitute existing content for years with either marginal or absolutely no attribution."

When so many people complain about your attribution and linking policies, I would think you guys would take a look at yourselves instead of attacking the messengers. Figure out why people feel robbed and see how you can correct it -- this might mean reading more A-list blogs than you apparently do. Newspapers do this all the time -- they devour the competition to make sure that they're not simply doing retreads.

Look, you didn’t address the key question: why don’t you contact people before bashing them publicly? You also didn't address my question about why you dredged up a two-year old non-issue that even you admitted was a mistake?

Both your examples were inaccurate, leaving your story without legs. When I called you on it, suddenly your tone gets conversational and interested in helping us out. Thanks. But maybe a public forum isn’t the best place to -start- throwing bombs?

Regarding the Risk post, I’m not sure what you think we do all day, but we simply don’t spend our time reading every blog on the planet. We hadn’t seen that post, so how could we have linked it? The other Risk post I showed you was something that we found only after looking into this, so we couldn’t have linked that either.

Given the sheer scale of the content we publish, sure there will be times when some post doesn’t link the person who wanted it or we inadvertently make a mistake (yes, we're human after all!). Your tiny collection of examples across several years, thousands and thousands of posts, and hundreds of thousands of words illustrates just how well we actually do, in fact.

We fix errors or attribution issues whenever brought to our attention, usually within minutes. There’s simply no conspiracy here at all.

Nate,

Sorry you're disappointed, and I get no pleasure out of criticizing people who are first-rate writers. But you have to admit that something very strange is going on at Ars Technica when it comes to giving credit where credit is due or linking back to original sources or even acknowledging a source that posted a similar item before you did.

Between the time I wrote my original post in 2006 and now, I've heard from people (even this morning right after I wrote today's post) who have been upset that Ars doesn't give them credit or links. Here's another post http://www.parislemon.com/2007/12/ars-technica-youre-member-of-internet.html by MG Siegler noting a case where Ars cited Apple Insider but didn't link back to the Apple Insider article. Rather Ars linked back to itself.

You say that the Risk map post had been written Friday morning but that it couldn't be posted until Sunday. Well, between those time periods, MG Siegler published his post. Why not acknowledge that someone beat you to the punch, or at least was thinking along the same lines?

You also say there is a long history of the Risk meme anyway. Why not acknowledge that in the post and link back to that long history?

I think this is what really bugs people about Ars Technica.

You guys are all very talented. It's just kind of weird that this failure to acknowledge the work of other talented people seems to be a characteristic of Ars Technica.

he is a summarizer, that is all .... sort of like guys at the factory all talk about what they read in the papers, or saw on the news, but talk it like its their own opinions.... it ain't personal, just kind of dumb

i would ignore them

ha, my captcha words for this post are "many phony"
and it is true

Very disappointing post, Cynthia. As you know when this issue first came up -one time two years ago-, I had included a quote from one of your pieces, then put it in a blockquote but forgot to add the link in our CMS when the story went up. You wrote a quite harsh post without bothering to contact me first; when I did respond and fixed the problem immediately, you wrote, "I heard from Nate and he claims the lack of attribution was an oversight, and I’m prepared to accept that."

By bringing up a distant mistake and trying to paint it as part of pattern, it's clear that you don't actually believe what you wrote back in 2006.

Now, you're accusing us again without bothering to ask us anything. Is this sort of "make wild accusations first and ask questions later" style of posting truly the way you want to be known in the blogosphere? I'm sure it's not.

If you had asked us, you'd find out that the Risk map post (not written by me) at the center of the current controversy had been written Friday morning without seeing MG Siegler's post. It was posted later in the weekend due to a lack of editors' time. In fact, the Risk meme goes back months (see http://www.theiphoneblog.com/tag/iphone-risk/ for examples) and isn't unique to Siegler at all.

For you to argue that we have "jettison[ed] any sense of pride of authorship" is certainly not borne out by the facts, nor is it even something you could know. We take great pride in our work and we certainly hope that you would be more responsible in future with such inaccurate and disparaging statements.