In the scheme of life, the universe and everything, it’s no big deal. But it does kind of piss me off so you’ll have to forgive this rant as I vent a bit.
When I post a bunch of links in Weekend Edition or Friday Follies, I use “Via” to link to whomever led me to the material. I figure I shouldn’t take credit for something someone else brought to my attention. If nothing else, it is simple courtesy.
So it raises my eyebrows when a major and (no longer) respected book blog comes here because I linked to it, sees something else in the post, clicks on that link and shortly thereafter writes about it — without mentioning how it came across the information. You know, the courtesy thing. Then, of course, other noted book blogs and aggregators do their own posts or repeat the information, all giving credit to the “mighty” book blog that found it here first.
I know this is endemic in the blogosphere and maybe I (and others) are following rules or traditions that are outdated or to which many are oblivious. But to me, attribution integrity is more important than scrambling for blog hits or ranking.
I know I need to do what I tell my kids: “Get over it.” But I’m just saying.
… bloggers agreed on the highest ethical priority: proper attribution of information that came from other sites.
John Timmer, “Blogger ethics: proper attribution > accountability“
My sympathy and my agreement, Tim. The blogosphere should live and breathe on proper credit, and leaving very big bread crumbs so we can follow each other’s trail of knowledge-building.
I agree as well. Not attributing linked sources is the blog equivalent of plagiarism, in my opinion.