Just as I'm preparing to ramp up creative production on personal work here and in other places, I feel as though I've been hit by a virtual Mack truck in the middle of a quiet street. Last week I posted a quick little jab, and you may have even seen it. Not that a huge amount of work went into that effort but it definitely took more than a few minutes to get everything just the way I wanted.
Hours after posting I noticed something I had not seen before: other websites posting my content verbatim (or in some cases with a different headline of their own choosing) with a link labeled thusly: "via airbagindustries.com". That's "via". As in, "I found the content from someplace else and are passing it through to the next person." In my day if you reposted someone else's content you attributed the source either by quoting said material, and/or posted a label that started with the word "from." I don't recall seeing this just a year ago and it makes me wonder if someone needs to change the filter in the global water cooler.
Look, I'm not Merlin Mann here. I am under no delusions that any of the posts here at Airbag are worth a plugged nickel. But the change in word usage for attributing the source of the content is rather odd and potentially problem-causing in the future. Perhaps it's not so much a legal matter (rest in peace Stephen Ambrose), but more of a how do we prevent homo sapiens from devolving back into monkeys.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
I blame Kottke. Isn't he really the one that started that whole 'via' trend?
Unfortunately "via" seems to stem from Twitter clients and users who didn't like "RT" (ReTweet). It drives me nuts to see something distinctly stated by the source with a (via @soandso) at the end of it on Twitter, as if they were just passing it along. There's a place for "via" and a place for "ReTweet." I.e., SOURCE.
See also: The Tweetie Dude: http://blog.atebits.com/2009/01/rt-vs-via-round-2/
> I blame Kottke. Isn't he really the one that started that whole 'via' trend?
Does Kottke do this too? I could swear that his use of via was for posts citing the source of content.
> Unfortunately "via" seems to stem from Twitter clients and users who didn't like "RT" (ReTweet)
Damn Twitter, it will be the end of our written culture. Following the thread in Mark's link It would seem that those who read, follow, worship Gruber ought to print out this post and place this post on the wall, nearby their computing device (considering this wasn't an issue until after he posted a link to said content).
"Via" means "from" now, thanks to Twitter, Digg, Facebook, etc, etc, etc.
You should be celebrating the fact that something you originally created was passed around the web so thoroughly.
I believe the blame for the ubiquity of that cite format can be laid at the feet of Tumblr. With the aforementioned Jason Kottke as the inspiration.
It's a misinterpretation of Kottke, if that's the source. I'm pretty sure that via used to mean "by way of." That's not even close to the same thing as "created by."
I'm more likely to blame tweets that use "via" when they are re-tweeting something. I can't stand that shit.
I hate to one up on this but Boing Boing was doing via years ago. A lot of blogs were. The big difference to this is in those cases the authors were doing commentary, sometimes with quotes, and then putting in their source. Twitter didn't invent it. Heck, I recall trying to find something other than "via" to plug my sources way before Twitter came out.
I get so irritated when people do this on Twitter and Facebook to my content. I don't think mine is particularly valuable or anything, but it would be nice to have a little more consideration than just copying what I wrote verbatim and sort of passing it off as your own.
I think this sort of thing is okay on a site like mentioned above, Kottke or BoingBoing where the person is writing commentary and merely referencing where they found the subject.
How interesting is a content stream of any kind that's just a bunch of "via" and "RT:" anyway?
I notice this behavior is much more prevalent in people who were not blogging 3-5 years ago, it seems like this etiquette is lost on the post-blogging boom folks.
I vote for "src" to replace "via" to properly credit SOURCE. And its a char-for-char replacement that can be used by Twitter,FB,Digg,Tumblr.... and Kottke. Pure genius, I'm done for the day.
> Damn Twitter, it will be the end of our written culture.
Funny how the exact same thing was said of blogs…
Brak sound clip, so great.
re Attribution: the blogging software I use [MarsEdit] has this (below) as the default attribution mention when blogging from another site...
#title#: "#body#"
(Via #sourceName#.)
And it's also my habit to blockquote the 'quoted' bit.
Is that not OK? Do people prefer "From:" where it says "Via"
No worries Peter. As Beth mentioned I'd say the issue isn't the "via." It's the lack of adding anything meaningful to the content.
I've been observing this trend for the last few years and have gotten increasingly irritated as a person who strives to create original content. At one time, I was "into blogging" and wrote a few fairly popular posts that got attention via BoingBoing, Consumerist, and a few other places. I thought, "Hey, that's pretty cool," except suddenly I realized that my content was being re-written by some of those sites with a little "via" link at the bottom. Not exactly the same issue as you're experiencing, but there's a troublesome trend I see for the future of online content, especially unique content from the minority of people who'd rather create than write about other people's creations.
Content aggregation sites are becoming more popular every day. I often wonder if it's because there are so many bloggers/websites without anything interesting to say or without the ability to add meaningful commentary, so they're forced to co-opt other people's content and call it their own. In the world of academia, that's called plagiarism. But, I have to admit that it's so much more convenient to go to one site to find out about the work of 30 different people than go to 30 different websites to see the original source.
> Damn Twitter, it will be the end of our written culture. Following the thread in Mark's link It would seem that those who read, follow, worship Gruber ought to print out this post and place this post on the wall, nearby their computing device (considering this wasn't an issue until after he posted a link to said content).
How the heck is this Gruber's fault? Gruber's telling you to LINK to the content, not post it as your own. And on daringfireball.net he uses 'via' appropriately. Take, for example, today's short post regarding Mockingbird. He provides a link to Mockingbird, a sentence of his own commentary, and then, a reference to where he got the news. In this case, the news regarding Blackbird came to him by way of Justin Williams. Thus, it is appropriate to include "(Via Justin Williams.)" at the end of the post. In fact, he's likely gone above and beyond what needs to be done in this case.
When it is incorrect is a.) when you're actually quoting someone else and b.) when you're republishing a large chunk or the entirety of someone else's work. In these cases it is not 'by way of' but 'from' and 'via' is not appropriate. And the biggest problem here is the last case - the complete copying of another person's content and somehow thinking that that is okay.
If we're going to have a "social" internet slinging content around is going to happen. The problem with "src" instead of "via" is that many times the content's been reslung many times before we see it so source might not be appropriate as it might imply the original source rather than your source.
Of course, citing sources on twitter or in blog posts is the ethical and dare I say, right thing to do but for all of us to agree on a form for that would be rough.
I've been reading Kottke for many years and as far as I know he's one of the most ethical bloggers around. I doubt he'd post something without proper whatever that is) citation.
I too use marsedit and changing "via" to something else is quite easy. "Via" was in there by default which means that Brett and Daniel must have thought it was some kind of standard.
I'm with Fred on the fondness for the Brak soundbyte. I'm glad it turned out to be what I hoped it was when I saw the filename.