3 ms·

the individual on reddit may have very well stolen your comment I did, thought of it more as a social experiment than theft, though. Apologies to boundlessdrea

• jacquesm 17y ago
  That's pretty low.
  • andreyf 17y ago
    Huh? To cross-post a comment from news.YC to reddit? Why?
    • jacquesm 17y ago
      If it was your own comment that would be fine, if it is someone else's then I'm afraid that it is beyond me to explain to you why it is wrong if you do not understand that by yourself.
      • andreyf 17y ago
        Right, if it was anything more than a comment on a message board, I agree, but just as borrowing a piece of paper or pencil during class without returning it is technically "theft", this is similarly justified.
        • jacquesm 17y ago
          You really don't get it do you? How do I go about explaining this in a way that the coin will drop... Borrowing a pencil or a piece of (blank) paper during class concerns the use of raw materials. There is no personal investment in to that piece of paper or pencil, they are the equal of any other piece of paper or pencil, which is why you can 'return' a piece of paper, you simply take another one that looks sufficiently like the original and you return it. To take someone else's words with attribution is one thing, even when done without permission. To take someone else's words and to pass them off as your own is the essence of plagiarism. You basically pretended to have come up with those words on your own. That's 'not done', not because you can't but simply because if everybody would be doing that we'd be having a cut and paste discussion instead of a real one. If you use a link to underscore a point you make (or even a cut-and-paste quote with a source) that's perfectly fine, but to simply copy someones words and make them your own is well over the line. 'Just a comment on a message board' has nothing to do with it, that's saying that it is ok to steal dollar bills but not ok to steal 100's.
          • andreyf 17y ago
            Accepting (and using) your confounding between copyright violation, plagiarism, and theft, most moral and legal system make exception to very minor infringements. The oldest I know of is the Babylonian Talmud, which grants exception to "injury less than a perutah in value" [1]. I challenge you to show any value in this "theft". that's saying that it is ok to steal dollar bills but not ok to steal 100's Precisely! That's what I meant by "borrow a pencil" without returning it: I'm saying it's OK to steal a piece of paper (or copy a comment), but not a dollar (or copy his blog post), and not a 100 (or copy a chapter from his book), especially if it serves another purpose (comparing replies to a popular comment in two communities). 1. http://www.come-and-hear.com/sanhedrin/sanhedrin_57.html http://www.come-and-hear.com/sanhedrin/sanhedrin_57.html
            • jacquesm 17y ago
              I give up. Someone else want to give it a shot?
              • andreyf 17y ago
                Someone else want to give it a shot? Sure. Assuming we have the same innate moral sense as the authors of the Talmud, you value the damages of my copyright infringement as greater or equal than a perutah in value. I do not. As a matter of fact, the reason I cross-posted is that I don't think the comment in question deserved the top spot, and would frankly be ashamed if such writing/logic were ever seriously attributed to me.
                • jacquesm 17y ago
                  Right... do you know what 'adding insult to injury' means ?
                • boundlessdreamz 17y ago
                  Wow dude.. You are one of a kind.
              • tel 17y ago
  • Locke1689 17y ago
    Actually, I think it's kind of interesting. Granted, it was impolite to crosspost the comment from boundless without asking first, but this could be an interesting thought process. I'm kind of wondering what conclusions andreyf was trying to draw. Edit: After a little thought, I think you may be blowing this up a little bit. He did delete the comment when boundless objected and it wasn't exactly a work of art or anything.
    • jacquesm 17y ago
      9 Hours later, after parting with this gem: > "As a matter of fact, the reason I cross-posted is that I don't think the comment in question deserved the top spot, and would frankly be ashamed if such writing/logic were ever seriously attributed to me." It's a new low for HN from what I've seen to date.
      • deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
      • andreyf 17y ago
        a new low for HN from what I've seen to date Agreed. Except you're the one who keeps insisting on dragging out for me to explain myself over something boundlessdreamz and I settled in two comments 10 hours ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1049476 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1049476
    • andreyf 17y ago
      wondering what conclusions andreyf was trying to draw I was wondering who would pick up first on the unyielding Google-love and the blatantly imagined Chinese-espionage speculation, HN or reddit. reddit won :( http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/aouv5/new_approach_to_china/c0io0dg?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/aouv5/new_appro...
• boundlessdreamz 17y ago
  I do care about it a bit because that comment contains personal opinion/commentary. If you had copied only the "data/facts" there would have been no problem.
  • andreyf 17y ago
    OK, I'll delete it. Sorry.