permaculture

[danmk <dankablaoui@gmail.com>]

>
> If somebody copies the article, google penalizes
> both sites because google thinks there is some sort of shenanigans.
> Therefore, to have many copies of the same thing is not smart.   If
> there were 100 pages with links to one article, then google likes that
> and more people will see that information.  That is smart.
>
>
What is the value of describing the aggregate behavior of people with
respect to one of these articles as "smart" or "not smart" when it is beyond
your control to regulate or significantly influence that activity?

There is no intelligent - or inane - agency here at all.  Framing your
problem in these terms is part of your problem.  If it is truly a question
of strategy, then it seems to matter *even less*.

If our mission is to make the world a better place, then we need to
> embrace the internet and be smart.
>

What are your intentions, Paul?  It seems to me you are working toward a
more streamlined, effective, and useful internet.

If so, I would suggest altering the nature of your communication with
these... "offenders."

Firstly, nobody likes to be made to feel like one of those.  Our culture is
such that we *must* try earnestly to avoid the reputation of offender, but
we live in a societal context of systematic, and egregious (indeed
mindblowingly large-scale) offense.  This is truly frustrating, and
accusations for so low-key a crime will almost always lead directly to an
emotionally sour discussion. (It's not your fault!)

Second, the irony of chasing these people down as offenders is that they are
often people who you would benefit from a working relationship with.  Your
current efforts create hostile relationships with people who find your
articles useful.  This is a shame.

Instead you can turn these scenarios into a way to expand the range your
writing(s), and your ideas have.

Why not approach these people with an *attitude* that makes it *very
clear*you know you wrote your article first.  It helps to also be
clear that you
do not need their affirmation, dissent, or input in order to establish that
fact.   It stands alone regardless of whatever happens next. Instead shift
gears immediately by engaging them in a discussion about content.  You
mentioned you spend quite a lot of time perfecting these articles, so surely
you have plenty of meta-considerations on each article's topic, and on the
process of writing articles like this in general.  Offer them other articles
you have spent months researching, trimming, and perfecting.  Offer them
insight not contained in the original article.  Offer a chance to
collaborate on future articles, or a revamped version of one of your own.

My main point here is to develop a strategy that acknowledges what your
actual abilities are in this matter.  Whether or not it is smart for a
society to list information in several different places as opposed to one is
irrelevant.  It might become relevant once a working relationship is
established with one or many of these people, but at present that argument
sounds a bit silly to me.

You have an indisputably justified concern for these articles.  Your rights
concerning them are a little less interesting to me.  Why not work with what
you have by eliminating the monthly struggle, and turning it into a possible
avenue for even more useful work.

If all else fails you could simply add an ostracism page to
permies.comwhere people (including yourself) would be given an
opportunity to laugh
pretenders off the internet in common space.

Maintain your high ground - you wrote the article, you put in the time, you
have a vested interest in it.  Maintain the dignity of this position, and
cease bothering yourself about Google getting confused, about the nameless,
faceless, "copyright-free", nature of this internet.  I believe that your
name and website are already quite well known, and that when you speak up in
a common space about a matter like this you will be listened to and given
your due respect by the community of people who you work with.

Throwing "proof" at people is dangerous.  That said, I wouldn't throw away
the wayback machine - if only so you don't forget yourself.

Open-source/Copyright/Whatever - avoid wasted time and sour new
relationships.  Hope you figure it out.

Dan

On 23 August 2010 11:53, paul wheaton <paul@richsoil.com> wrote:

> I've done open source, public domain, shareware, freeware, etc.  Lists
> and lists of so many flavors of all this.  I don't suppose anybody
> here used something called "bananacom" back in the mid 90's?
>
> For a variety of reasons, I use a plain and simple copyright.  The key
> is that if there is more than one copy of stuff on the internet, that
> leads to problems.  If there is just one copy and then there are links
> to that one copy, then all is well.
>
> Once in a while I get an email from somebody that says they are
> leading a workshop and they want to have handouts for 25 people and
> could they hand out one of my articles.  So I give permission provided
> that it is clear where it came from.  All good.
>
> If our mission is to make the world a better place, then we need to
> embrace the internet and be smart.  A huge amount of toxicity comes
> from lawns, so I wrote my lawn care article in an attempt to persuade
> folks to stop using toxic gick on their lawns.  Most of the traffic
> comes from google.  If somebody copies the article, google penalizes
> both sites because google thinks there is some sort of shenanigans.
> Therefore, to have many copies of the same thing is not smart.   If
> there were 100 pages with links to one article, then google likes that
> and more people will see that information.  That is smart.
>
> Open source is great for some things.  But not for this.
>
> On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 9:31 AM, negiliblek <negiliblek@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Paul,
> >
> > Since you're other profession is Information Technology, I suspect you're
> familiar with how the Open Source world works.
> >
> > You could approach it from the point of view that you're glad they are
> using your information because it's open sourced (assuming you want to open
> source it), however, did they know, that for the open source world to be
> successful, credit must be given to the originators.
> >
> > This way, you encourage the spread of good information, and the modifying
> of an idea with a pointer back to the original idea.
> >
> > Your reputation grows and so does theirs IF their idea based on your
> original idea innately holds merit (as borne out by the "users" of that
> idea).
> >
> > This is competition which is based on cooperation rather than domination
> in which ideas win and not individuals, where individuals stock and value is
> their ability to create and modify, not how many patents they can repress an
> idea's progress with.
> >
> > You could put GPL tags (or some other variant) and/or a short statement
> like:
> >
> > "If you credit me with a link to the original web page on my site, feel
> free to reuse information from my website. Otherwise, you may not reuse or
> re-distribute information from my site."
> >
> > The Open Source world polices itself by both positive and negative feed
> back to the successful, the unsuccessful and the leeches. So, until people
> understand the concept of giving credit in as done in the Open Source world,
> you'll have to deal with some negativity.
> >
> > If you haven't already read this (or know it's concepts), here's an
> article from Damn Small Linux (if you've the time to read it all the way
> through, you find mention of plagiarism in it):
> >
> > http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/income-guide/intro.html
> >
> > I like what you've done in such a short time Paul, I wish you the best
> whatever you choose (and I really hope you choose the open source path).
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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