Blog Pet Peeves I

Before I set up a blog, I read a gazillion of them. No, really, a gazillion. I counted. Really…

I was tempted to set one up for a while, but there was so much involved in doing it "right" that I put it off for a long time.

I try desperately not to break certain written and unwritten rules. I don’t want to wind up becoming some sort of pariah that everyone regrets knowing. I sure as hell don’t want the local news station’s attorneys dropping notice of a lawsuit in my lap while I’m at work.

One of the things that really pisses me off is people who wantonly steal someone else’s material with barely a mention of the original author.

Fortunately (to the best of my knowledge) I cannot accuse anyone in my sidebar of this transgression.

Most bloggers (or at least the ones I continue to visit) are excellent of grabbing a few choice quotes and saying, "Read the rest here." Some of you write tantalizing intros and tell those eager with anticipation where to find the post that made you break out the thesaurus for new and exciting ways to say "This post rules!" I’ve added more than a few bookmarks because of posts like this. Half a gazillion, at least.

Stealing an entire blog post and putting it on a different website (without permission and gratuitous recognition that you used someone else’s content) is lame. You tease, you lead, you beg and grovel for your readers to go to the actual author’s site.

You don’t cut and paste the entirety of someone else’s work and leave your reader no reason to go to the author’s site.

To all of you that have linked me in the past and driven hits to my site, thank you for having a little etiquette. I try to do the same thing when I link to other people.

For what it’s worth, I can’t spell "etiquette" without getting it wrong the first time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s a good thing. I may not know which fork to use when in fancy restaurants, but I’m not a flagrant pirate.

I realize there is a "Fair Use" issue here as well, but every time I start to read into it, my eyes glaze over and I wonder if I got any sleep the night before.

Meanwhile, I guess it’s time to read into copyrights.