Comments on: Thoughts on Citing the Original Source

By: A Geek Apart » Blog Archive » Sharing Links, SEO Optimization, Citing your Sources, and the Nature of Conversation

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 12:30:45 +0000

[...] Over at The Blog Herald, J. Racoma discusses linking strategies and citing original sources. The discussion revolves around the question of whether you link to the site where you found the information, or the original source of the information, which are often two different sites. I have an opinion on that, and I want you to hear it. [...]

By: Dave Starr --- ROI Guy

Dave Starr --- ROI Guy — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 07:41:38 +0000

I pretty much follow the same practice as Wil. First, I very seldom cite other blogs because I am not part of the echo chamber, I don’t blog about blogging, so I seldom read something I am going to write about on anyone’s blog.

But I found long ago that even “mainstream” sources are often quite sloppy about thier own credits and if I link to “a” saying s/he is the source becuase “b” said so, and then “C” pops up and claims ownership I am unwittingly stuck in the middle of a urinary Olympiad.

Therefore I always cite the source where I read about an item and let _that_ source be responsible for where s/he got the “original” material. Besides, this stuff isn’t supposed to be all that serious. I don’t want to steal nayone’s work but if I wanted a career writing textbooks with pages and pages of footnotes and citations done via the Chicago Manual of Style I’d quit blogging tomorrow.

By: evden eve nakliyat

evden eve nakliyat — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 13:24:55 +0000

thanksss

By: AhmedF

AhmedF — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 12:42:12 +0000

I have to half-disagree.

In the case of blogs, I would say a majority of posts are nothing more than a re-phrase of the original source. At that point, there is no need to link to the site you got the info from (as they have really done nothing but re-post).

In the case of breakdown analysis – then it becomes questionable. I would still say its best to link to the source – without the source, the further post would have never occurred.

Linking to the one you found it from is a bad idea imo – it simply makes the big bigger, who are basically gaining links for the work of others.

By: Wil

Wil — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:12:27 +0000

I think you should provide a link to the site you got the info/idea from. If everybody does that, the links eventually get back to the original source. Take out the link-whoring, link-hogging, and link-snobbery and just point people to the site/sites where you got the idea or info.

We all see things, build on them, take them in new directions, come at them from different angles, etc. and as long as we do our best to give credit where it’s due, it’s all good.

By: Lars Koudal

Lars Koudal — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 08:46:48 +0000

I must admit that I most commonly refer to where I found the latest article instead of the source. For no particular reason, it has just never occured to me that the original poster deserve a link as well.

In hindsigt, I am not quite so sure that only linking to the source where I read the information is such a bad thing. The original writer looses a backlink, but if I blog about something, then I base that on the source most recently read, and the insights and comments on that.

I consider this a bit of a grey area, but it will definately be something I will be more aware of in future blogging.