I just wanted to take a moment to thank those people who give proper attribution (aka a hat tip) when they post about something they found here. More and more lately I’m seeing things that I know started here show up from blogs of people I know and respect with nary a note or link back. Taking the time to properly attribute things can be a drag sometimes, but I think it’s important to maintain the credibility of weblogging as a medium and to reward those who bring new things to light. If you are someone who does properly credit things please know that I appreciate it quite a bit, and I hold you in a higher esteem than more “professional” blogs who are sloppy at best with their attribution.
I concur. I’ve done just enough media stuff that I guess that’s where I get my inveterate assholishness about wanting to give credit where it’s due. Plus, I also think that it’s fun to follow the chain of hat tips around the Web. It’s too bad that more people don’t do it, because I think that a hat tip is an inherent snap judgement of the person you’re linking to, saying, “I value this person enough to give them credit here.” When you can follow that around, you see the chain of credibility.
I think those that don’t give credit are either being selfish or just haven’t thought it through.
Hopefully I’ve given credit where it’s due. That’s why I hacked the ‘via’ stuff into the rp-recentlinks plugin (although I recently realized it needs just a little more work).
I know I love it when people credit me, so I feel it’s only right to credit others. It’s the whole “netiquette” thing, ya know? 🙂
Eric, could you share that hack? Because I need that functionality as well…
Dude, it is just a blog.
Danny: …Ehm… What?
Hope that I also have given credit where it’s due, I always try to do so.
Michael: haha!
Matt, I will always credit people for the hard work they do. 🙂 Thank you for the development of Word Press. I remember last summer when I heard about the project I was so excited about it! You and the other developers have done a great job. 🙂
this is true, i’ve seen someone before taking something straight form my site and stick it on their own. It was something i had been sent, and they didn’t say where they found it, it is rather annoying.
I try to give credit all the time, but the thing is, often you get sent things via e-mail and have no way to attribute them. And if you find something at someone’s site, and THEY attribute it properly, are you bound to follow the links all the way back to the original?
Hear, hear! I always try to attribute.
I’ve taken to only putting in ‘via’ links if that person isn’t in my blogroll. It’s not ideal – it’s sort of a compromise. I’m very lazy and when I was putting in via links for every link I posted it made me less likely to post (sad, but true). Also, I think constant via links don’t help readability.
I’ve often wished for a more graceful method of supplying attribution. There’s a display problem but also an input problem. Ideally, the CMS’ bookmarklet would magically fetch the referring page and input it as the ‘via’ link.
Well, be it that the via links are constant if you are posting something that you read somewhere but its just fair. I for one, do credit others when I’m posting something that I read somewhere else but to overcome that feeling of uneasiness, I give the credit either at the beginning of the post or at the end of it, never in the middle of a post. 😉
You can try that too D. 🙂
This from the man who didn’t give me a hat tip for the article on sexy names? Hah! Just kidding, darlin’; I hope that this gets better, and you let me know if I ever post something and don’t give you enough credit! Love, C
I’ve got mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I always like when people link to my site but on the other hand, if all you’ve done is provided a link to another site am I just congratulating you because you can use Google or some other aggregating tool? Hardly seems necessary. However, if you’ve provided extra insight or opinion into what you’ve linked to then I think it’s worth the links. Effort for effort.
Hmm… I give credit whenever I can. Sometimes I lose track of where I got a link from because I often shelve interesting links for blogging in email or del.icio.us. I know it’s bad form, but it’s what’s convenient for me. Of course, if it’s more than just getting a link from someone, I’ll definitely give attribution where it’s due.
Yup. I started my “cholo” word of the day and I’ve seen some folks rip off the material. Oh well.
I agree with both Ben and box of chocolates here – a “via” hack on Marrku’s recent links plugin would be really helpful (so would an author field) and hat-tips should definitely be somehow semantically encoded.
What would be nice is for WP to have a via box. You just type the urls in there – one per line (in the order you followed them?) and it can add a field into the post (
Hat-tip:). I think that it’d make the whole system a lot easier to use.Matt, I have a basic instinct to look for good things out there and attribute them on my blog.. this is actually the core theme behind the blogs… blogs without trackback/pingback are mere messageboards…. there’s no difference between a wordpress and a phpbb if you don’t have trackback/pingback in wordpress! Keep the good work going! Of course it pays! 🙂