So, I's reading WoWInsider last night, and there's an article about the relationship between a tank and a healer. And I looks at the picture and sez to meself "Self! Great googly moogly! It be me friends Keredria and Jessika!" And I's happy what they's getting some WI loving. But then I gets puzzled. While there's links to they's blogs? Especially to K's, since that be where they took the pic from? Ain't like they's not willing to link at all, since there's links to articles by SaladFork and Phae. Turned out the pic itself linked back to the post in K's blog they took it from, but it be real easy ta miss that. I did, and I were looking fer a link - someone else hadda point it out to me.
Well, now I's pissed off. You gonna take content from somebody else's blog, you damn well owe them a "thankee" and a link in yer text. Especiallies if yer a big time outfit like WI what be using that content to try to make money. And I sez boo. Booooo on WoWInsider and they's rude manners.
Fer great justice:
Keredria (healer): Tree of Life
Jessika (tank): Pretty in Plate
update: The WoWInsider article now shows links to K and jess' blogs in the text. Thankee - I appreciates that.
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14 comments:
Rats, my friend, did you click the picture? That'll take you to Keredria's blog - the article from which the picture comes, even.
That said, I agree -- a note in the article or below the picture that it was from another blog would have been the right thing to do.
I thought that was strange myself. Especially since K talks about the tank/healer relationship in that very article herself.
@Kirk - yeah, I said the pic is a link. But you'd never know it was unless you happened ta move yer mouse over it. In my opinion, that's not enough.
Adding my boo to your boo here. I was thinking the same thing when I read the article - didn't even click the picture, cause, you know, that's not really obvious.
hee hee... thanks Ratshag for the post and letting us know. Great to have a dwarf priest have our backs. It was very odd that our picture was good enough for the article. I mean we are two hot night elves, but still.
Plus no mention or link to Jess at all. I mean if rewriting a song for your healer doesn't express the tank-healer bond, I don't know what does.
http://jessikathetank.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/tree-of-life/
That's the way WoWInsider rolls, though...stealing content from around the internet and regurgitating it as their own, which, I suppose, would be fine if they weren't masquerading as a news blog. Mostly, they're an editorial blog (at best) supported by getting as many hits as possible. Just observe their "articles" for a while. Most often, you'll see they were either "inspired" by another blog post somewhere else or a dribble of news was released and they scrawl out their opinion on the news like so much feces tossed by a monkey at a wall. Add in the shameless self-glorification posts (About the Bloggers, really? how does that qualify, exactly, as news?) and you've got a recipe for, well, utter crap.
/rant off
Ratshag is victorious.
You go Ratters!! Good Job!
I said the same thing when I went to the article. I mean at least put the link under the picture, or say "click the picture ya goobers" somewhere. Honestly.
Sadly, this is pretty typical of several of the bloggers at WowInsider, in particular the one that's posted this. It makes me wonder if it's standard operating procedure of that blog ("hey, make sure that you link within our own site 99% of the time and AT ANY COST avoid linking to an external website") or if they're just people that have never blogged before and thus don't understand the concept of community. You know, community - where you link to other people in some manner because it's more important to find others interested in the same thing, to share information, or just because it's interesting to send people to other websites. I actually have to think it's on purpose though. I honestly think they have some kind of "do NOT link outside!!" rule that they're told to follow. I'm probably even more certain of this when I read the many artlcles with multiple inward links - in other words, links that only take you to more of their own articles, rather than any reinforcement that the content in those articles is agreed upon in other Wow resources. Yeah I know, they have to pay the bills, but each time they do something like this (because I'm a long time reader I can say, this happens repeatedly) it makes me feel the site has some...unusual ethics shall we say.
In this case, yes there may have been a link on that photo - but if they'd put a name to it they'd have had to focus on another site - and they were already focusing on two other websites external to WowInsider. At times some of the bloggers there have called themselves journalists - which doesn't fly as journalists (those who work under certain standards) always are upfront about the source of their content, and that includes screenshots.
(Sorry for rant, former mass communication instructor here. This kinda thing bugs me.)
Aye Ratshag, I've had a good amount of content taken directly from my blog and posted on WI without a word of thanks.
Kudos to calling them out on it, because the shameful plagiarism needs to stop!
WI linked to one of my entries once, and while they did provide a link back to my Blog they insisted on calling me Captain Jack.
@batgrl
Please have my internet babies.
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