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February 22, 2004

POINTING A FINGER

Terry Teachout, a fellow ArtsJournal.com blogger, wrote an item yesterday -- lectured like a schoolmarm is more like it -- about the importance of using links in a Weblog and the good practice of crediting them. The tone recalls Mr. Rogers:

Repeat after me: Giving credit to blogsources for borrowed links is good for everybody in the blogosphere.

Not all bloggers feel this way. Certain of our colleagues are bad -- a few notoriously so -- about giving credit to other bloggers. I'll name no names, but I will say that the stingy practice of link-poaching has lately come in for quite a bit of backstage criticism.

Given his broad-brush "name no names" comment, I don't know whom he means. But since he mentions "certain of our colleagues," I have to wonder whether he's pointing a finger at bloggers here at ArtsJournal.com. If so, I take exception. I don't poach links and I give credit where due. If he means bloggers on the Web-at-large, I wish he would say so. ArtsJournal.com readers are bound to conclude that he's looking around his neighborhood and means his colleagues here, even if he didn't.

Postscript: Terry cleared the mist from my windshield with his item, posted this morning (Monday), for which my thanks. Had I been following Bookslut I suppose I might have deduced whom he meant. I actually don't mind link-poaching as much as Terry does, maybe because I'm not part of their pissing match. But I regret my intemperate "schoolmarm" characterization, especially since Bookslut picked up on it, uncredited -- eh eh. (Thanks for the links, Terry.)

Posted by at February 22, 2004 01:01 AM

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