” One site, called usernomics, … they’re adding value above my original content!”

SItes like usernomics are not adding value. That group is simply ignorant about how blogs work, and so think that cutting and pasting is valuable.

Note that the republish most items verbatim, so that when they use this current entry of yours, they’ll keep sentences like “I think this is the way the Web is going.” They do this with almost no attribution: this is plagarism.

Sites like iaslash, on the other hand, frequently republish large chunks of content, but at least have the decency to wrap blockquotes around them and introduce them with something like “Bokardo wrote an interesting post today…”

Andrew: you’re right. I’ve added the clarification “sometimes positive/sometimes negative” to the post. Thanks.

Ah, but this is the way in which writing – texts that circulate on their own and in the absence of their maker – has always been dangerous! Or, at least, potentially disruptive to those in power.

Plato’s famous attach of writing in The Phaedrus puts such fear-mongering in the mouth of Socrates who, in an effort to seduce young Phaedrus, warns him of the danger inherent in writing…that texts circulating are not available for questioning, for vetting in the forum as a citizen. A veiled warning that in text, even women and slaves can attain “author”ity:

Soc. I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is
unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one
unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves.

Phaedr. That again is most true.

Soc. Is there not another kind of word or speech far better than this, and having far greater power-a son of the same family, but lawfully begotten?

Phaedr. Whom do you mean, and what is his origin?

Soc. I mean an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner, which can defend itself, and knows when to speak and when to be silent.

Fear the text. Fear the user/reader who can make of it what she will. An old sentiment…

http://eserver.org/philosophy/plato/phaedrus.txt

I think it’s great what you are saying. It would be great to have many different choices of data representation. One thing we need to remember is that the majority of the web users have no clue about RSS/XML/API. They don’t know what it means, they don’t know how to use it. I think we need to put more effort in educating the masses.

Hi Joshua,
I enjoyed reading this. I think control is a key issue in design right now (and not just on the Web) and I was actually thinking about it yesterday…

I think the way Usable uses your content is out of line, because they don’t give you enough attribution. The way the present it makes it look like *they* wrote it. I agree with Andrew, it’s plagarism.

I recently had an experience with one of my readers who had a habit of copying and pasting entire posts of mine into his blog. He gave me decent attribution and links, but unfortunately I sent him a rude email all the same. I say unfortunately, because in our subsequent discussion I realised his intentions were totally pure and I was the one out-of-line for getting upset about it.

I’m not sure what my point is here… perhaps it’s that the Web 2.0 world of free-flowing and syndicated content is still very grey when it comes to the question of IP (Intellectual Property). I don’t think copyright and other IP forms have quite caught up to the Web 2.0 world of fast-flowing and user-controlled interfaces. Hmmm.

Great thinking, Josh.

Control can be the enemy of user experience, especially on the Web. There are exceptions, but far too many designers are deceived by the illusion of control. I think I may have to blog about this.

And I have to agree with Richard and Andrew. Usernomics does not properly credit the original sources. I’ve had some of my writing appear there, but don’t consider the “Via UXCentric” and tiny “Read…” link at the end of the post proper attribution. If a blog is built on the efforts of others–as Usernomics is–attribution must be much clearer, preferably in the headline.

One way to go would be to declare the rights you want to retain via a “http://www.creativecommons.org Creative Commons license. It sounds like Josh might want to go with a simple “attribution” license, as that one allows users to reprint, remix, and produce derivative works if they attribute the source of the material.

This wouldn’t prevent careless or unscrupulous use, but it would make the rights you grant to others clear.

I noticed that usernomics has three attributions: The title is linked directly to the article, the Via, and the Read. That does seem to be pretty well attributed to me.

Thanks for the comments…I’m slightly torn on the issue myself. Believe it or not, I actually got less attribution when usernomics first started republishing my stuff, and I told them that I didn’t appreciate it. They then started adding the “via bokardo” note at the bottom. Still not great, but I’m at a point that I’m grateful for readership right now, because I just want to have conversations like these. That said, it’s hard to tell if the few folks who come over from them become regular readers or not.

About Creative Commons: I don’t know enough about it to make a decision, and frankly, I’m very much behind the curve on that one. In some way I’m just letting it go right now because I view this as my sort of sandbox, but I do keep a keen eye for those folks who reference me and link back to stuff I’ve written here.

I realize that this may be too relaxed an attitude for some, but in my way I don’t want to be over controlling of my own content, because I feel that my ideas are the same as everyone elses…nothing is really new, is it? Even still, if I decide to write something more serious, like the column that Richard and I are writing on Digital Web, then I’ll be much more proactive about attribution in those cases.

Richard MacManus (comment #6) has been talking about RSS Ripoff Merchants over at Readwriteweb. It’s another, scary take on this conversation.

“Not all designers see it like I do. In a follow-up comment to his recent Digital Web article, Dirk Knemeyer says that “we need to begin controlling the environments that our work is being experienced in.”

I recently found a comment about Yahoo! – I paraphrase here but it said something like “I never realized how user-friendly Yahoo! is but if you look at how many of their interfaces are customizable its clear that they are amazingly user-friendly”. The fact is though that My Yahoo! is a nightmare of usability design. Its just too much. Just cos the user thinks he has the freedom to customize doesn’t create an excellent user experience – that’s only part of the whole picture. Every aspect of the direct environment that an interaction designer develops should be controlled. Fair play – give the user freedom to take the content away and yep, “do with it as you will”, but dont give the user the illusion of freedom at the price of usability.

Once upon a time the whole web was content-based. The web page creator would say “<H1>This is a heading</H1>” or “<UL><LI>This is a bulleted list</UL>” and the actual appearance of that heading or list would be completely up to the user and their browser. But designers didn’t like that — they demanded control, and over time the browser writers and standards bodies gave it to them.

The upside of this change is that web pages can be professionally designed. The downside is that readers with nonstandard browsers or special needs (or even strong opinions about how they want their content to look) are subject to the whims of those same designers.

Because the creators, not the end users, are in control of the browsers and the standards bodies, I anticipate that RSS will suffer the same fate sooner or later.

I have only recently been reading on this whole semantics thing.. but after this page I do have a question. Why design at all? Why do usability studies? Why determine what color bores, excites, or implies trust? I mean, if designers are really doing their homework and have a REASON for making things look the way they do, WHY should every Tom, Dick, and Harry be allowed to futz with it?

I don’t know, I guess I just should be allowed to use my blacklight when I visit the Cystine Chapel. Or maybe after I die, THEN they’ll put my design in a rigid place where one is forced to look at it the way I made it.

I’m not a control freak, it’s just, I don’t get the point of presentation if it’s lost on someone else’s ‘preference options’ Oh, here’s one.. a wonderful chef makes a spectacular meal, complete with delicate presentation.. and the customer sends it back and says, “I prefer to see it {{like this}}.”

“I think this is the way that the Web is going. Despite the naysayers who claim the Semantic Web is a load of bunk, the Web is going whole-hog services and semantics. Web apps, APIs, feeds, remixing, aggregating, tagging…and everything in between. ”
– greate words. 21st centure – is an “Servise” century.