Established Bloggers Accused Of Violating Link Love
link love 1. giving appropriate credit to a site where information was initially found 2. recognizing the contribution of another via a referencing link
Niall Cook makes a disturbing observation:
"I’ve noticed an increase in the number of established bloggers deciding not to declare their sources, particularly when it comes to news that I know has been broken elsewhere. They clearly want the reverse link chain to stop at them and claim all the glory."
Is this becoming a widespread problem?
Update: See additional posts about this topic below
Do Scoops Matter? Does Attribution? (Naked Conversations), linking to The Scoop No Longer Exists (C:\Pirillo.exe) and Blog networks changing history? (Scobleizer), linking to When network blogs changs history it cannot be a good thing (jkOnTheRun).
I’ve instituted a “hat tip” policy.
If my content isn’t directly linking to the site that tipped me off, I’ll go out of my way to thank people who brought things to my attention. (like here: http://positiveposition.com/blog/2006/02/09/the-state-of-pr/)
My goal is to provide a different “tipping hat” for each tipster. (Plus, I am a geek, and enjoy making simple animated gifs.)
Ike,
I think it’s great that you’re generous with your recognition of fellow bloggers. Wish everyone were like that.
Andrea if you read Advertising blogs, you’ll see it happens all the time. This is a big reason why I don’t write as many advertising-related stories as I once did on BMA, because several times BMA would be the first blog to catch a story, and 5 mins later a slightly re-worded version of what I posted would be on another blog, with no sources cited.
Mack,
Something similar happened to me this past week or so (my post slightly reworded, using the same links I had used). But the blog did reference me, so I didn’t mind too much.
I wonder why this happens with the advertising blogs… must be the popularity of their topics, along with the fact that they’re mostly commercial sites that are constantly looking for content for their bazillionth post.
Yes the advertising blogs mostly all have the same stories, so if someone sees one blog listing a story that they cite as having pulled off another advertising blog, people will just start going to the blog they cited to get their info first.
And like you said, they are mostly commercial in nature, so readership plays a huge role.
For my readers, I always recommend double linking to the post itself, and to the home page of the blog, as an added courtesy. Note that I got the idea from Jay Solo at Accidental Verbosity. Since that time, if anything, I overlink rather than underlink. I suggest that everyone double link to the blog being referenced. It’s the right thing to do.
Wayne, I too have used the double-linking approach you recommend, although I don’t always. I definitively try to give the appropriate credit…because “it’s the right thing to do.”
I link to everyone I steal from except Mack.
Mack, did you see what Scott wrote? Them sounds like fightin’ words
That’s ok Scott doesn’t have any traffic anyway
Just kidding Scott, we know you are an A-lister in disguise.
I follow your method, Andrea (and that of Wayne and others). The blogosphere should be a community, with its standards. The best thing we can do is to live by example. When I started blogging regularly in May 2005 (after blogging irregularly since 2003), I learned my conventions from more skilful bloggers, those whom I considered to be at the top of their fields (people like Johnnie Moore, for example). If we keep our standards, hopefully others will follow.
Jack, I like your suggestion to lead by example.
A related note: what about TrackBack love?
When you link to someone, let them know about it. I typically discover mine on the rare trip to Technorati (I’m not as prone to ego-surfing anymore.)
If you forget to fill out a TrackBack (or want to manually do it for someone who doesn’t know how) here is a great resource — Adam Kalsey’s Simpletracks: http://kalsey.com/tools/trackback/