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For what it's worth: When I first launched my Wordpress-based website back in 2005, I initially had it set up to post full articles to the RSS feed. Soon, howev
by DamnInteresting 5y ago
For what it's worth: When I first launched my Wordpress-based website back in 2005, I initially had it set up to post full articles to the RSS feed. Soon, however, a major downside appeared: It became absolutely trivial for other sites to reproduce my content, and they did in droves. My writings appeared all over the web on generic Wordpress sites, usually attributed to other people. After grappling with the problem for a few months I gave up and switched the RSS to only publish intros, and that mostly resolved it.
Sure, it is always possible for a human to copy and paste my articles' text to their CMS, or for someone to write a simple scraper to extract the desired content. But both of those solutions introduce various hassles, and they require a human to fully accept that they are stealing content, which much fewer people are willing to do.
- fartcannon 5y agoHN is not the place to fanboy over things, but your stories never fail to surprise me. Thanks for continuing on and making the podcast, too.
- DamnInteresting 5y agoOn this day a fartcannon made me feel appreciated. Thanks! Edit: I hope this didn't come off as flippant; it is refreshing to receive encouraging words without the all-too-common "but I don't like how you do such-and-such".
- fartcannon 5y agoNot at all flippant! As for 'constructive' compliments, I think the old information superhighway analogy of the internet is applicable because there sure is a lot of roadrage on the net.
- eloeffler 5y agoYes, it totally makes sense. I hold no grudge against news sites or anyone who chooses to publish teasers either. And be it only because they need statistics on which articles are more or less popular. Or ad revenue... Unfortunately the negative effect for my end remains. Sometimes there is no ideal solution for everyone, I guess.
- DamnInteresting 5y agoIndeed. As is too often the case, a few bad actors ruin an otherwise elegant solution.