New York Times:
The Curator’s Code will use a symbol resembling a sideways S to express that a piece of content came directly from another source, and a different figure — a curved arrowlike symbol — to signal what is commonly known as a “hat tip,” or nod to a source that inspired a further thought. The Curator’s Code supplies the appropriate symbol and then the blogger or writer simply puts in a hyperlink behind it as they normally would.
How about just stop stealing other people’s shit.
Lazy shorthand for people who think typing attributions takes too much effort.
And forces the reader to follow the link (if placed there) to learn the source, rather than the author including the reference in the text. It is not merely lazy – it puts the work on the reader rather than the author to whom the responsibility belongs!
Curators do a great job in bringing amazing things together on the unwieldy web. It is not stealing. Why do you quote “other people’s shit” on the loop?
To top it off they are making efforts to bring proper attribution to the web. A great way to make such a task appealing is to make it simpler, like iTunes did with buying music in a time when Napster and the likes flourished.
The loop, as a linking blog, is a curation. I think it should support Maria Popova in this endeavor.
If clicking links is SO much work for the “not-lazy” reader, why do you read ‘The Loop’ then?
How about just typing words. You know, like:
“In “Code of conduct proposed for content aggregators” on The Loop, Jim Dalrymple makes the point that maybe an improvement in ethical behavior would obviate the need for some kind of “special attribution” code.”
Oh look, plain english, properly attributed. You don’t even need HTML to do it.
Proper attribution is warranted always. A link does allow a “hover” view…
Simple, the folks at The Loop give credit in the text. (John C. Welch beat me to it)
Folks want to see it for themselves so they know you aren’t putting words in someone’s mouth. Thus the reason for links. but they don’t need to be this old school markup. just put the link in the text appropriately. That’s what Jim is basically saying and I agree. Especially since 99% of the world isn’t going to get what the cute little symbols are all about
Jim has never said that he doesn’t support the intent, just the proposed method. It’s making things too complex. We don’t need cute little symbols just for folks to bother to include links back to the source.
if someone wants to see the source, what I wrote is actually enough information for them to find it. It’s a wee bit more work, i.e. google vs. click, but it’s still “proper” attribution.
However, that’s not the point. The point is, twee symbols help no one, and are really just an attempt to make what is simple and obvious (attribution) into yet another nerd-approved special code.