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Linking Etiquette and Discovery Credit

Lauren

If you get a story from another blogger, do you cite that blogger?

On “Link Propagation and ‘Discovery Credit’“:

I agree with Blaze that this is an instance of a general problem, and this connects to recent discussions of fairness in weblogs. For instance, as he points out, within the “political economy of linking” there can be incentives not to point to one’s sources. While there’s a general norm of bloggers linking to sources, the practice is not universal and few chains of credit go all the way, with the unfortunate consequence that promising sources can remain obscure for longer than they would otherwise.

Not crediting your peers takes the “we” out of weblogging, doesn’t it?

10 thoughts on Linking Etiquette and Discovery Credit

  1. I’ve been ranting about this for the past few days. When you provide a link to the blogger you got your information from, you’re not only giving them credit but leaving the door open for a resource who is familiar with the story being worked on. It just doesn’t make sense to shut them out.

    To me, at least. I’ve found out there’s so disagreement on this matter.

  3. There are a couple of things I’m confused on. If you find it “everywhere” how do you link back?

    How far back do you go and for how long? Ex. FRT. When I first did it, I credited T. Then he stopped doing it and after awhile I didn’t link back.

  4. i’m not really part of the blogosphere (damn i hate that word – actually i hate most of the words associated with blogging, especially “blog” – gots to be the clunkiest vocab ever assembled) in any way other than lurking & the occasional spastic commentary but i do know that if i see a “Via” somewhere i regard it the same way as chancing upon a new path in a familiar forest: something immediately to be explored. i have found many an interesting place following these “Via”‘s – they’re like little signposts.

    still, i’ve always wondered: do bloggers get angry or annoyed when they think someone else has posted about a story they found on the bloggers site but didn’t link to them? barring actual plagiarism or repeated occurences, let’s just say you wrote on the new trend in oneleg bunnyhopping. the next day you notice that Avast a Blog has also written about oneleg bunnyhopping but no link to you. you know Avast a Blog visits your site regularly…. so now what? annoyance? does it have to do with your relative positions in the whatchmacallit blog-ecosystem? how do you know that they heard about it from you & not somewhere else in the this vast & continually changing info soup?

    at my own site, whatever it is, all i do is link to stuff i find elsewhere, but i don’t tag a Via on every one, partially because i rarely remember where i found stuff (i tend to crawl about the web in a somewhat hypnagogic state). my Via i guess is a page of links that outline my regular travels. i’ve always assumed this to be enough, but perhaps it’s not…

  5. It depends.
    I don’t really quote in my posts, so if I got an idea from somewhere I use inline linking to their site. But I don’t write out the idea and then do “Via: Blah blah”. That said I don’t really use other people’s ideas unless I write about something topical, which would be rare, in whch case it really isn’t a ‘stolen idea’ as it is topical and I can link to the news article – usually at the bbc.

    It is always polite to link, I would suppose, except that it is possible they don’t wish to have a load of people follow your link. I have no interest in people reading my site and (not that anyone quotes me anyways) perhaps I should ask for non hyperlinked ‘thankses’ if someone ever did.

  6. I link back to my source 90% of the time, unless I forget where I heard about the article/topic first — then I’m pretty open about my shame in regards to being forgetful (which happens more than I’d like!) Haven’t had too much of a problem with that lately, though, since I’ve been on a blogging break for a couple of weeks. *heh*.

  7. well, what happens to me sometimes is that I find a tid-bit of information on the internet, then i blog it – then i read my bloglines and i see that some people in my blog ‘network’ have talked about it already…so then i wonder if i should update and say “so and so is blogging it too” or what? So then i wonder if the other person thinks that i swiped it without linking…it seems no win at time…i give credit where credit/link is due…but sometimes it doesn’t work that way….

  9. I always link back to a source. Perhaps it’s my minor in Journalism talking, but it’s unethical not to cite a source for information you’re using. If I write something that is inspired by something someone else has said, I end up linking back somewhere, if not outright at the end of the post.

    I think it’s important, fosters community, and lends credibility.

  10. What Mac said. Comes from my journalism training, too – I always try to link back to an original source. If finding that source takes me through a number of blogs I’ll do a “via” path. To me one huge advantage blogs have from a credibility standpoint over mainstream press is their ability to link to original research or sources so the reader can find out, with one click of a button where the story is coming from. Otherwise it’s all one huge game of telephone rumor (like that whole Kerry was having an affair with a staffer hoax that Drudge gave legs to). With broadcast and print you rely entirely upon the integrity of their production/reporting staff to fact check and vet their sources – which as recent events prove – you’re stupid to do.

    Though I’m still pissed about the CBS story. From a journalistic standpoint they did exactly what they’re supposed to. They never claimed the documents were definitely authentic – just that their research to date seemed to indicate that. They invited others to verify the authenticity. Nobody expects everyone to have *all* the facts nailed down before publishing a story. What is expected is you’ll continue to cover it and modify the story as events develop. Which is what they did. Their sin was in doing the ethical thing – they admitted they could be wrong. If you compare this to Fox though they seem to have gone to a different school of journalism. Report the story you want to hear and as long as you can get away with it, ignore any subsequent developments that contradict that story. Or just outright lie and say they corroborate the original conclusion. If neither is possible, trump up some new sensational story so everyone forgets the old one. Sorry to rant – pet peeve.

    Anyway In the case where everyone’s writing about the same subject, I’ll usually say something like “I’ve seen this everywhere” or “this subject is getting a lot of attention” with one or two links to folks who had particularly good commentary.

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