Posted on 05/11/2011 7:49:38 PM PDT by Steve Peacock
I am simply posting a public apology for unintentionally abusing my access to Free Republic. Having recently unveiled an original news blog -- and since I share many of the conservative values expressed here at FR -- I wanted to make my findings available via this venue. I must say that until today many, many FR readers found my articles useful and even enraging in light of some of the government programs I have shed light upon. However, I did not realize it was in poor taste to post an excerpt and link to my own work.
You have my assurances that it is more important to share my articles with my fellow Americans. Although it is undeniable that I appreciate new visitors to my site, my goal was not to build up my site-meter numbers.
Good apology, Steve. From now on, will you be posting entire articles, rather than excerpts?
Steve, good post, but you forgot to include a link to your site. :-)
I’ll say the same thing I say to every single blogger - self excerpting harms the visibility of your blog posts. FreeRepublic posts tend to come up high on Google’s search results, because there’s so many links in and out of here. Excerpting means that you’ve fewer chances for that article to hit the keywords in a search, and you’ll receive hundreds less hits to your article because of it.
LOL! You are so bad ...
No apology necessary Steve. Most FReeper prefer to read and discuss the articles here rather than going out to some other site for the content.
The excerpting requirement imposed by various news outlets is annoying, but we put up with it as we understand the nature of copyright litigation and the need to protect FR from lawsuits and penalties. When the author of a piece decides to post his own material here for discussion, there is no need to excerpt and link back to the original source. If you want people here to discuss your blog content, feel free to post it here for us to read and discuss. Most of us just don’t want to go somewhere else to read the article if it isn’t an absolute requirement.
If you want to request that if people forward the content that they include a link to your blog, there is certainly nothing objectionable about that.
What? What? Did Humblegunner go to your house and beat you up?
No problem Steve. Thank you for the news stories.
You’ve got the right stuff, Steve. I think you’re going to be a real asset around here.
I don’t think you needed to apologize, but the way you worded your explanation was far above normal.
Good blog with some meaty info. ( and yeah, I excerpted!)
http://peacockbiz.typepad.com/tram/
“Occasionally U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor will take a look at various facets of government spending; a snapshot, if you will, of a particular use of taxpayer funds. Today, the Monitor looks at how much the federal government spends on jet fuel in support of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan.
Calls to speed up the withdrawal of U.S. troops from and Central Asia have increased since Osama bin Laden’s death, but decision-makers have made clear that such a drawdown of troops is not happening any time soon. As the White House, Congress, and media pundits ponder and expound upon what, if any, changes should be made to U.S. policy on the issue, one thing is certain: U.S. military jets will continue to fly into, out of, and around Afghanistan.
But how much will this cost U.S. taxpayers?”
I’m glad you have reformed. Blog pimps not welcome, IMO.
Steve, that was an excellent post and hopefully your example may enlighten others, and I wish you well with your own site that it exceeds your dreams.
ROFL!
I often don’t realize it’a a blog, if the information is interesting, that’s what matters. I always look to primary sources if I have any doubt.
You’re what Bill O’Reilly would call “a stand-up guy”. But we won’t hold that against you ;-)
I’d never heard of “blog pimps” except on FR, where they seem to be a bigger deal than elsewhere.
No need for an apology Steve.
Your original caution and is justified.
This is a self-regulating process (or should be). If the blogs become popular, the authors would continue to link them. If not, the thread dies a quick death anyway.
I have never understood why there is this huge distinction made between blogs where the author is somehow known to us as a freeper, or as the poster, and blogs where the author is unknown. Blogs are simply replacements for newspapers and magazines. Very few non-LSM venues are not, or were not at their inception, clearly “blogs.”
If Mark Steyn came to FR and posted a link to his site/blog, so what? Ann Coulter’s site is/was a “blog” - so what if she came here and posted the usual excerpts? The “blog pimp” concept seems to include the idea that freepers are “forced” to support someone’s “blog,” (which is no different than any other site/publication in fuction) even if they don’t want to. That’s crap!
If people want to read the article, they will — just like with every other article, regardless of whether its source is called “American Thinker” (a blog), “Powerline” (a blog) — The Looking Spoon, Right Scoop, Flopping Aces, HotAir, Destin Log — or whatever. If not, they won’t.
But to create this boogeyman “blog pimp” is, IMO, ridiculous. No one is forcing anyone to click on a link. And EVERY site, whether it’s called the dreaded (but ultimately meaningless) name “blog,” is published because the author wants readers/hits. DUH. So how is it impolite to post a link to one blog but not another?
How does it matter WHO posts the link to the blog (which, again, is a meaningless name at this point in New Media development)?
If the blogpimp police think it’s a quality control issue, please. Those threads will get the same quality control that every other thread gets, regardless: people vote with their clicks. End of story.
I personally hate unexcerpted posts. I’d rather decide from the excerpt whether I want to look at the entire article. It’s especially annoying to load this huge article when using a small screen. Just my two cents.
In other places, it only comes up if someone is really an abusive poster, basically, spamming a site with links to his own stuff.
That is not how “blogpimps” seem to be defined here. Anyone who posts to his own stuff, no matter how well within normal FR guidelines, get jumped on by a group of freepers who act as though the rest of us can’t decide for ourselves whether we’d like to read the article at the link or not.
I have no issue with jumping on abusive posters, but unless it reaches the level of spamming FR, I’d rather let the “marketplace of ideas” determine what threads “make it” on FR, not some arbitrary bright-line rule on WHO posted the thread.
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