3 ms·

"blog spam" aka packaging and reporting a story from elsewhere, a basic part of journalism. People around here really try too hard to be indignant.

mkr-hn 14y ago
I don't think people realize how common a practice it is for one site to ask another for permission to republish an article. I would happily accept a republishing request from NPR.
- weinzierl 14y ago
  Are you the author of the original article? I found it not only highly interesting but also very well written. I'm sorry I didn't realize the link I posted wasn't the original. I totally did miss the link back to the original in the footer and (unfortunately) I guess most other people will.
  - mkr-hn 14y ago
    I'm not the original author. And in my experience, that link at the bottom will send plenty of people back to the original who otherwise never would have heard of the blog.
smacktoward 14y ago
A part which made more sense in the days when you could only read your local newspaper, so you didn't have easy access to the original story. When the original story is just a click away, a repackager only adds value if he/she expands on the original in some material way -- coming at the story from a different perspective, say, or adding facts or background information that were not present in the original. This post does none of that. It's a straight-up rewrite of the original, with no new contributions to the story. It makes the same points and even uses the same illustrations as the original. It does cite the original and link to it, but there's nothing in the new piece that would make it a more authoritative version of the story than the old one. I generally don't oppose people posting links to blogs, but in this case it really does seem like sending people straight to the original post would have been the classier thing to do.
- DanBC 14y ago
  > but in this case it really does seem like sending people straight to the original post would have been the classier thing to do. I think the poster has said it was an oversight; that the links to the original article were missed. In this case it would have been nice to post to the original article, but as you say they're pretty similar. I think it's much worse when some document is released, and then eight different tech blogs have a minimal but opinionated write up which each get posted to HN, and then people don't reply in the threads but on their own blogs, and then the tech blogs pick up each other's coverage.

mkr-hn 14y ago

I don't think people realize how common a practice it is for one site to ask another for permission to republish an article. I would happily accept a republishing request from NPR.

weinzierl 14y ago
Are you the author of the original article? I found it not only highly interesting but also very well written. I'm sorry I didn't realize the link I posted wasn't the original. I totally did miss the link back to the original in the footer and (unfortunately) I guess most other people will.
- mkr-hn 14y ago
  I'm not the original author. And in my experience, that link at the bottom will send plenty of people back to the original who otherwise never would have heard of the blog.

smacktoward 14y ago

A part which made more sense in the days when you could only read your local newspaper, so you didn't have easy access to the original story. When the original story is just a click away, a repackager only adds value if he/she expands on the original in some material way -- coming at the story from a different perspective, say, or adding facts or background information that were not present in the original. This post does none of that. It's a straight-up rewrite of the original, with no new contributions to the story. It makes the same points and even uses the same illustrations as the original. It does cite the original and link to it, but there's nothing in the new piece that would make it a more authoritative version of the story than the old one. I generally don't oppose people posting links to blogs, but in this case it really does seem like sending people straight to the original post would have been the classier thing to do.

DanBC 14y ago
> but in this case it really does seem like sending people straight to the original post would have been the classier thing to do. I think the poster has said it was an oversight; that the links to the original article were missed. In this case it would have been nice to post to the original article, but as you say they're pretty similar. I think it's much worse when some document is released, and then eight different tech blogs have a minimal but opinionated write up which each get posted to HN, and then people don't reply in the threads but on their own blogs, and then the tech blogs pick up each other's coverage.