4 ms·

The Lack of Netiquette

76 points by texeltexel 17y ago

Semiapies 17y ago
Ajaxian's also been bad, now and again, about just copying and pasting the entirety of a blog post as "their" content.
- Pistos2 17y ago
  Examples?
gr366 17y ago
First off, this is bad behavior on Ajaxian's part, and they should learn that people will appreciate them just as much (more, actually) if they send the user off-site to the content they're pointing at. Second, shouldn't it be possible for Roman to prevent another site from embedding his IFRAME? Either catching the window.parent.location in JavaScript or only serving the IFRAME page if his own domain is in the referrer?
- boundlessdreamz 17y ago
  yep.. there are iframe busters available.
sophacles 17y ago
Doesn't a direct link cost more bandwidth? In which case does the one google ad on your site make the difference in cost/income? Further, does the ajaxian style hotlinking -- full credit and source link provided, constitute the same think most people think of for hotlinking (no credit, just images from someone else's site...).
- there 17y ago
  if the ajaxian page were just a link, there would be a percentage of people who would see the image/explanation and then decide not to click through. they weren't interested in it, and so they don't use up the guy's bandwidth. with the iframe, those people use up the bandwidth whether they want to see it or not.
- boundlessdreamz 17y ago
  The satisfaction of getting visitors is very important. Don't read his post as about costs alone. It is more like he paid the costs but got nothing in return. No visitors, exposure or fame :)
  - sophacles 17y ago
    I tried to read it like that, but the part where his screenshot of the rickrolling, which includes the whole ajaxian post, has attribution to him, as well as a direct link to his site. Im not sure how that is not exposure/fame.
- pyre 17y ago
  On the other hand, this guy is seriously upset about this, but the Ajaxian staff feel that it's proper to just ignore him completely? Whether this guy has a point or not, ignoring him completely on both occasions (the first one where they didn't even give him attribution) shows that they are just a bunch of assholes. He also does give an example of another site (Smashing Magazine) seeing the post on Ajaxian and believing that the work was the original work of Ajaxian (or a staff member of Ajaxian) and not the work of the real author, so it seems reasonable for him to be upset about this. Especially since his work seems to only be driving fame/publicity for Ajaxian, and not himself.
pmichaud 17y ago
This is kind of outrageous. I sort of look at ajaxian as a reliable and interesting source of info on webdev, but now I'm totally turned off. I'll make it a point to not visit. Shame on them.
- Semiapies 17y ago
  I've unsubbed from their feed.
- ehsanul 17y ago
  An apology has since been made in the comments and the post updated to reflect it.
byrneseyeview 17y ago
Here's how their post starts: Román Cortés is having a lot of fun with CSS tricks these days. He just built an example rolling CSS coke can that uses background-attachment, background-position, and a few other tricks to get the effect. No fancy CSS3 needed here! It looks like they gave him full credit for this. Unless he was selling access to this blog post, I'm not sure why this is an issue. It seems even more benign than piracy. (And as sophacles points out, this uses less bandwidth than a direct link, too.) Clearly, Román is willing to have his bandwidth used in order for people to look at his cool CSS trick. So why is this a problem when it's a little less bandwidth, plus a third-party endorsement?
- glhaynes 17y ago
  Isn't that interesting how having no price on the post seems like it would make one look differently at the seemingly-legitimate-copyability of one's work? And, I suppose, sometimes people make a lot of money off of a work and then don't mind copies because they feel like they've already made (and continue to make) much from it.
- otakucode 17y ago
  >It looks like they gave him full credit for this. Unless he was selling access to this blog post, I'm not sure why this is an issue. Perhaps you missed the quite important point that Ajaxian was using this post to drive traffic to their site effectively and selling advertisements based on its, and not their own, merits? They're not just linking to something and showing it to their users, they're getting his paid-for account to serve the content so that they can make advertising revenue off of his work. I think the ethical issue with such an action should be clear.
  - byrneseyeview 17y ago
    They promoted him. They showed the same content he did, plus a strong endorsement, minus some of the bandwidth costs. And he's mad that they might have earned a few dollars from their ads?
    - 17y ago

76 points by texeltexel 17y ago

Semiapies 17y ago

Ajaxian's also been bad, now and again, about just copying and pasting the entirety of a blog post as "their" content.

Pistos2 17y ago
Examples?

gr366 17y ago

First off, this is bad behavior on Ajaxian's part, and they should learn that people will appreciate them just as much (more, actually) if they send the user off-site to the content they're pointing at. Second, shouldn't it be possible for Roman to prevent another site from embedding his IFRAME? Either catching the window.parent.location in JavaScript or only serving the IFRAME page if his own domain is in the referrer?

boundlessdreamz 17y ago
yep.. there are iframe busters available.

sophacles 17y ago

Doesn't a direct link cost more bandwidth? In which case does the one google ad on your site make the difference in cost/income? Further, does the ajaxian style hotlinking -- full credit and source link provided, constitute the same think most people think of for hotlinking (no credit, just images from someone else's site...).

there 17y ago
if the ajaxian page were just a link, there would be a percentage of people who would see the image/explanation and then decide not to click through. they weren't interested in it, and so they don't use up the guy's bandwidth. with the iframe, those people use up the bandwidth whether they want to see it or not.
boundlessdreamz 17y ago
The satisfaction of getting visitors is very important. Don't read his post as about costs alone. It is more like he paid the costs but got nothing in return. No visitors, exposure or fame :)
- sophacles 17y ago
  I tried to read it like that, but the part where his screenshot of the rickrolling, which includes the whole ajaxian post, has attribution to him, as well as a direct link to his site. Im not sure how that is not exposure/fame.
pyre 17y ago
On the other hand, this guy is seriously upset about this, but the Ajaxian staff feel that it's proper to just ignore him completely? Whether this guy has a point or not, ignoring him completely on both occasions (the first one where they didn't even give him attribution) shows that they are just a bunch of assholes. He also does give an example of another site (Smashing Magazine) seeing the post on Ajaxian and believing that the work was the original work of Ajaxian (or a staff member of Ajaxian) and not the work of the real author, so it seems reasonable for him to be upset about this. Especially since his work seems to only be driving fame/publicity for Ajaxian, and not himself.

pmichaud 17y ago

This is kind of outrageous. I sort of look at ajaxian as a reliable and interesting source of info on webdev, but now I'm totally turned off. I'll make it a point to not visit. Shame on them.

Semiapies 17y ago
I've unsubbed from their feed.
ehsanul 17y ago
An apology has since been made in the comments and the post updated to reflect it.

byrneseyeview 17y ago

Here's how their post starts: Román Cortés is having a lot of fun with CSS tricks these days. He just built an example rolling CSS coke can that uses background-attachment, background-position, and a few other tricks to get the effect. No fancy CSS3 needed here! It looks like they gave him full credit for this. Unless he was selling access to this blog post, I'm not sure why this is an issue. It seems even more benign than piracy. (And as sophacles points out, this uses less bandwidth than a direct link, too.) Clearly, Román is willing to have his bandwidth used in order for people to look at his cool CSS trick. So why is this a problem when it's a little less bandwidth, plus a third-party endorsement?

glhaynes 17y ago
Isn't that interesting how having no price on the post seems like it would make one look differently at the seemingly-legitimate-copyability of one's work? And, I suppose, sometimes people make a lot of money off of a work and then don't mind copies because they feel like they've already made (and continue to make) much from it.
otakucode 17y ago
>It looks like they gave him full credit for this. Unless he was selling access to this blog post, I'm not sure why this is an issue. Perhaps you missed the quite important point that Ajaxian was using this post to drive traffic to their site effectively and selling advertisements based on its, and not their own, merits? They're not just linking to something and showing it to their users, they're getting his paid-for account to serve the content so that they can make advertising revenue off of his work. I think the ethical issue with such an action should be clear.
- byrneseyeview 17y ago
  They promoted him. They showed the same content he did, plus a strong endorsement, minus some of the bandwidth costs. And he's mad that they might have earned a few dollars from their ads?
  - 17y ago