I know there are alot of you out there who like to pimp the fact that you read the news by posting articles in your blogs. This practice is acceptable within reason. We moderators have been discussing how to tackle the problem of copy/paste blogs without any substance. I've decided to post this as a guide that you should use should you want to put an article into your post. In general, e-mails and chain letters will have to have some really good justification and will not be looked favorably by the site moderators.
Firstly, make sure you have a position. 'Blog' is a foreshortening of 'web log;' it's a journal, not a scrapbook. There's no point in posting an article if you don't have anything to say about it. If your aim is to provoke discussion alone, your post belongs in the forums, not on your blog. Generally, the majority of your post should consist of your opinions.
Secondly, there's really no reason why you should post an entire article. Most news sources use AP style which recommends the "inverted pyramid" method. What this means is that journalists are taught to write in a style such that the important information is contained within the first few paragraphs of an article. This is done so editors can easily chop an article from the bottom when they have limited paper space instead of having to sift through a lengthy article to pick out the important parts and essentially rewrite the entire thing. Keep this in mind when you're copying an article. Generally all of the essential information will be contained in the first three or four paragraphs. If there's a statistic later on in the article that you think is relevent, there's no reason why you can't mention it in your commentary.
Thirdly, cite your source and post a link when possible. This will accomplish three things: 1) you will not be plagiarizing, 2) you will have established legitimacy, 3) given that you're clipping the article, other users will be able to read the article in full and pick out points that you may have missed or ignored (we all do it, sometimes intentionally).
The last thing of importance regards international and US copyright laws. Although the AP newswire is utilized by many newspapers (have you noticed how many different newspapers often have the same stories?), it is unlawful to reproduce an article in full without the author's consent (cited or not). This is why the second point is of such importance.
The point of this site is to have a point. Copying and pasting an article into your blog is not a point. Moderators will begin considering posts for deletion that only copy and paste articles from news sites. The basic rule to keep in mind is, "Would I want to read this here?"
Keep blogging and have fun!
--Mike
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Good guide Mike.
The only thing I would add is that if it's something such as a press release that is being passed along to PU users on a "for your information" basis, copy/pasting with minimal comment would be acceptable in those instances... but again, that should be done sparingly.
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -Huxley
"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." -Gandhi
What you're talking about gets a little touchier, Fallon. If it's a press release YOU wrote for another group, reposting it is generally taken pretty well, so long as you say why it's important/why you're posting it here. If someone else wrote the original press release, reposting it as a blog can come accross as a cheap way to get points. Instead of copying a press release into a blog you could post it in the forums, describe what you got out of a past event with the group then say what the upcoming event is, or tell why you want to go to the event when you post the press release.
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"If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?"
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." - Marianne Williamson
That makes sense. What I'm talking about are less the press releases, etc that I have written for other organizations than the FYI posts such as the Voting Rights Violation Hotline FYI I posted prior to the November midterm elections (see URL) or the Dollars for Darfur notice (thought I did add a few sentences to that one prior to posting).
Every once in a while something like those will pop up from a user and since the information given in the release says all that needs to be said... it's really rather pointless to attempt to add any value to the information just to skate past the copy/paste or plagiarism rule when all one is trying to do is give pertinent information to PU users... in other words, the information isn't being posted to get points, but just to get the information out there... does that make sense?
http://www.progressiveu.org/132939-voting-rights-violations-hotline
As for things that were written for other organizations, that makes sense. I don't post those things often and generally when I do post those they are press releases or calls to action I've written for said organizations (I Am Countdown press release, Care Package for Soldiers call to action, etc).
I've never thought about posting them to the forums before... probably because before this week I never used the forums before... but I'll do that in the future even though I'm not in the running for the scholarship anymore.
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -Huxley
"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." -Gandhi
Great job, Mike. I promoted this to the front page and made it sticky so more people would see it. You also might want to consider turning it into a FAQ page, since copy and paste posting does come up a lot, and you did a great job of a addressing the issue.
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"If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?"
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." - Marianne Williamson
Thats not the point of progressive u, to give other peoples opinions, the point is to express your own opinions. Im glad you put this up here, because personally i only think some people have so many points because they do this.
Note that this really only applies to news articles. If you're copying and pasting a story that came out of an e-mail, you should have a good reason for putting it up, and you should state that it came out of an e-mail. Chain letters will not be looked favorably upon, as they go against the goal of this site.
~C
Visit my blog.
I'll add that to the blog, is that ok?
--Mike
Of course :-)
~C
Visit my blog.
Chain letters are even worse, because most of the time they're not even true. A cursory look around Snopes is usually enough to debunk them.
Then again, it might make for a good parody website, where everybody posts their reactions to fake news. Maybe get a scholarship going with The Onion... it's not a bad idea.
"CONSERVATIVE, n.
A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others."
- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
but that was the first time ive ever even posted a blog with an article in it and THE WHOLE FIRST paragraph is MY OPINION! I agree that people shouldnt just post blogs with article, but maybe you should have read my whole blog and maybe you should have looked at my post blogs or the comment you previously put on your site on this BLOG! Just a suggestion (=:
I'm not quite sure what this part means:
"maybe you should have looked at my post blogs or the comment you previously put on your site on this BLOG"
And as you've seen, I've responded to your most recent post.
--Mike
First part is 136 words...over what a regular blog has to be. I think thats enough an opinion~ Just wondering what you thought???
"First part is 136 words...over what a regular blog has to be. "
You're right but you have to remember that the MINIMUM is 100 words, you can type as much as you want (as long as it's not too long) :)
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See my blog and I'll love you forever! Or at least temporarily: www.progressiveu.org/blog/npsm18
My question is whether or not the moderators (or whoever takes care of the tallying of points) actually check out posts for these specific guidelines. I've seen many a blog thats useless and i don't want that person to gain points for doing nothing.
The mods are trying to figure out exactly how to moderate the blogs, without censoring and without taking down blogs that violate the rules. This is one of those efforts. Now that this is put up, it's likely going to be a lot more stringent on the content of blogs. Things are being changed, promise :-).
Besides, at the end of the contest, the mods will go through and disqualify a number of blogs in order to determine the winner. It'll be a week or two before the winner is announced.
~C
Visit my blog.
And she didn't mean a week or two from now before winners are announced :)
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -Huxley
"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." -Gandhi
Eh... I'm not having fun with words tonight, am I? Yeah, a week or two after the end of the contest (June 30).
~C
Visit my blog.
Great post Mike. We should also mention copyright law and "fair use." For articles that are copyrighted (almost anything from a news site), it is generally a violation of copyright to post more than short excerpts unless you have permission of the copyright holder.
Can you also repost this as part of the FAQ? (As a "book page").
I trimmed it down to take out the needless commentary and it's now an FAQ underneath the "Can I re-post..." FAQ. I also posted about re-posting chain letters there.
--Mike