Dot your i's and cross your t's

This morning I read the latest entry on G4ILO's blog entitled, "A tale of two websites". This ought to be required reading for anyone maintaining a blog, whether ham radio-related or otherwise.

Without giving away the details of what Julian writes about, he outlines how it appears that one website has "lifted" their design from another website. He goes on to correctly point out that many bloggers are using images and text in their blogs obtained from other sources without permission.

A couple of months ago I was searching for information on 80 meter antennas and one of the search links took me to AE5X's website/blog. John had a nice write-up about his experiences using a simple 80 meter dipole and some information about his station. After reading his entry I continued to search and stumbled across another link to a ham blog in Ireland. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that this fellow (who I won't name) had the EXACT SAME write-up, only with certain points changed to reflect his own station and setup. He literally substituted his station information but left the other text exactly as John had written it. As if HE was the person who authored it in the first place! I wrote John a note and told him. He thanked me and said that he would try to contact this person and see what the story was.

I often wonder about the motives of some bloggers who merely regurgitate information that's available from other websites, which are often the actual sources. Is it really necessary to post the results of past contests when that information is available for everyone on the sponsor's site? Is it really necessary to post the details of upcoming contests or DXpeditions when there are half a dozen sites devoted to those subjects and are far more "in the know" than the blogger could ever be?

Another example is a blogger who seems to have self-appointed himself "mission control" for the ham radio-related activities for the aid going to Haiti. I'm sure he feels that his efforts are noble and worthwhile, but in reality he's merely cutting and pasting information from official and non-official sources and has no way of verifying any of it. In a recent entry he even goes as far as to admit that the information that's he's already posted seems to be in conflict with information from other sources and now he doesn't really know what's going on now. Really?

Maybe some of this is a reflection of how news in general seems to work nowadays. Seems that even major news outlets are able to post rumors and speculation and get three or four shots at getting the story correct without any accountability.

Regardless, Julian is right. Even though we're not journalists we have a responsibility to give credit to sources when we post information on our blogs and to not act as if we are responsible for the information, when, in fact, we had nothing to do with it.