OhGizmo!: OhGizmo! » Archive » Hydrofoil Water Scooter
NetGeek
· 3 years ago
What? No beverage holder???
Shari
· 3 years ago
Hey Bruce, your via link is all wrong. It says "ask men" but it goes to uncrate? Uncrate should be called "Uncredit", they steal the majority of their stories from other blogs, including this one from Coolest Gadgets. http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20060327/wata-po... In the interests of fairness and justice, the link should go to Coolest Gadgets, not the thieves at Uncredit.
Shari
· 3 years ago
And if Uncredit (ahem), I mean Uncrate didn't steal it from Coolest Gadgets, then its obvious he stole it from Book of Joe- http://www.bookofjoe.com/2006/02/aquaskipper_se... Ponce, do you read these comments? It seems you should be more dilligent in giving the proper credit, given you know how it feels with the whole engadget guys stealing stories from you. It also seems hypocritical for you to link to uncrate, when uncrate never give credit to the all the stories they steal from the blogosphere.
Shikoku88Henro
· 3 years ago
Ok I am sorry and I corrected that link title, totally a slip on my part.
(The following is the opinion of the writer and does not constitute the opinions of OhGizmo)
As far as the whole whether or not Uncrate steals their articles, well that is not for me to decide. True they do not post a trackback or anything but for all we in the blogosphere know is that the person writing those did actually find them on their own. I am not justifying, condemning, or making a judgement about their actions but as for how I found it, it happened to be there and thus I link to them. I do thank you Sheri for pointing out MY mistake on the link for it was a mistake. But in terms of the practices of other blogs, well that is their choice IMO.
dponce80
· 3 years ago
Hi Shari. I appreciate your zeal, and am grateful that you seem to care enough about this to search for the TRUE source of a story. Unfortunately it seems that you, along with many others, missed my point with the whole Engadget business.
I never accused them of "stealing" stories, only of maintaining a blacklist of sites they obstinately refuse to link to, and then denying it publicly.
As far as Uncrate is concerned, this is the first I hear of them "stealing" stories. As Bruce pointed out, there's not much we can do about another site's linking policies, let alone when we're not even aware of alleged unethical practices.
I don't believe our obligation, as bloggers, is to follow the link chain, down the rabbit hole, until we find the potential originator of the news piece. This would not only be impractical, but nearly impossible due to the way info propagates online. Sometimes, you just hit a dead end. So, our policy is to link to the site that we found the piece on, whether or not they were diligent about crediting their sources properly.
If it's possible to demonstrate that a site is completely unethical, and never credits their sources properly, then I see no reason not to remove them from our OPML, but so far, as I said, it's the first I hear of Uncrate doing this, and I have to give them the benefit of doubt.
Shari
· 3 years ago
Ponce, (if I may call you that, its meant endearingly I assure you) this is why I read your blog, you answer comments! Thank you for clarifying your situation with engadget, I understand your point. I agree this isn't exactly like engadget, I was referring to blog ethics in general. You know, at first I didn't want to believe that engadget was acting so improperly, but after reading the digg story and your story, I think its all true. What a shame, for you AND for them. I held them in such high regard and it made me sad to see that there was an ugly side to blogs that I had no idea about. Most of my thinking on blog ethics has been spurred by what I had read on digg and your site regarding engadget, so I referenced that as an example of things that I have started to notice after the engadget fallout. This got me noticing how links work and I started paying attention to this a little bit more dilligently in my blog reading hour at work (I always see similar stories / topics covered in different places. I've noticed great crediting practice on your site. And horrible practices on uncrate, which actually used to be a favorite blog. I did a quick and simple technorati search and saw that 7 of the stories on his homepage today have been already done on other sites recently (within days) and saw only one [via] thing. I agree with you completely that blogs shouldn't have to "follow the link chain, down the rabbit hole". But I think its the job of the internet community to uncover when people are doing things wrong. (kudos to the digg community btw for uncovering the engadget thing). Anyways, keep up the good work, just wanted to let you guys know. There are other sites that I have been noticing this with too, but have only been tracking it for a couple weeks, and uncrate seems like the major violator.
dponce80
· 3 years ago
I don't answer all comments, Shari. A lot of trolls around, and there's no point feeding them.
But to address what you're saying, the truth is that you've put your finger on a pretty gray area of blogging ethics. I mean, just WHO do you credit? The site you found the story on? Or the site that did the research, and originated the story? Or the site that cleaned up a crappy JPEG to make us enjoy the news item more?
To make things worse, as you pointed out with Uncrate, sometimes if you find a story, the site doesn't provide you with a direction to go to. In these cases, unless you've stumbled across the news item elsewhere before, there's really no way for you to know who to credit aside from the site you first found it on.
Also, as Bruce pointed out, there IS the faraway possibility that the person did originate the story on their own, though, as you've pointed out through your research, this doesn't seem to be the case with Uncrate. Sadly.
So, the question becomes: do you simply ignore the story, because it comes from a site you've branded as unethical? In my opinion, it depends. It depends on just what site it is. Some sites, smaller ones, have less of a responsibility to be ethical in my eyes (of course, in theory, everyone does, but in my reality, I ask myself "Who cares?" Obviously, you do, and maybe I should re-evaluate my standards.)
Nevertheless, you're left with a situation where you have to weigh the "loss" you incur from refraining to write an article about something, against the somewhat less tangible moral benefit you gain from avoiding sending traffic to a site that you've decided didn't deserve it.
In the end (and it would be hypocritical to pretend otherwise), we're really all in it for the money. Sure, we love entertaining others, and being read, but we put enormous amounts of time and effort in doing this, and most of us don't expect to do it for free.
Don't get me wrong, there certainly are exceptions, and I'd be curious to know just what proportion of bloggers do this for fun, and what proportion do it for financial gain.
In any case, Shari, thank you for pointing this out to me. To be honest, I hadn't even noticed. I can't promise you that I'll change anything, but I'm open to the idea.
James
· 2 years ago
I'm wondering whether the hydrofoil water scooter is worth buying. I've got nothing against a healthy discussion of linking policy, but I'd hoped that at least some of the comments would address the positives and negatives of the scooter.
All Comments
In the interests of fairness and justice, the link should go to Coolest Gadgets, not the thieves at Uncredit.
http://www.bookofjoe.com/2006/02/aquaskipper_se...
Ponce, do you read these comments? It seems you should be more dilligent in giving the proper credit, given you know how it feels with the whole engadget guys stealing stories from you. It also seems hypocritical for you to link to uncrate, when uncrate never give credit to the all the stories they steal from the blogosphere.
(The following is the opinion of the writer and does not constitute the opinions of OhGizmo)
As far as the whole whether or not Uncrate steals their articles, well that is not for me to decide. True they do not post a trackback or anything but for all we in the blogosphere know is that the person writing those did actually find them on their own. I am not justifying, condemning, or making a judgement about their actions but as for how I found it, it happened to be there and thus I link to them. I do thank you Sheri for pointing out MY mistake on the link for it was a mistake. But in terms of the practices of other blogs, well that is their choice IMO.
I never accused them of "stealing" stories, only of maintaining a blacklist of sites they obstinately refuse to link to, and then denying it publicly.
As far as Uncrate is concerned, this is the first I hear of them "stealing" stories. As Bruce pointed out, there's not much we can do about another site's linking policies, let alone when we're not even aware of alleged unethical practices.
I don't believe our obligation, as bloggers, is to follow the link chain, down the rabbit hole, until we find the potential originator of the news piece. This would not only be impractical, but nearly impossible due to the way info propagates online. Sometimes, you just hit a dead end. So, our policy is to link to the site that we found the piece on, whether or not they were diligent about crediting their sources properly.
If it's possible to demonstrate that a site is completely unethical, and never credits their sources properly, then I see no reason not to remove them from our OPML, but so far, as I said, it's the first I hear of Uncrate doing this, and I have to give them the benefit of doubt.
ethics in general. You know, at first I didn't want to believe that engadget was acting so improperly, but after reading the digg story and your story, I think its all true. What a shame, for you AND for them. I held them in such high regard and it made me sad to see that there was an ugly side to blogs that I had no idea about. Most of my thinking on blog ethics has been spurred by what I had read on digg and your site regarding engadget, so I referenced that as an example of things that I have started to notice after the engadget fallout. This got me noticing how links work and I started paying attention to this a little bit more dilligently in my blog reading hour at work (I always see similar stories / topics covered in different places. I've noticed great crediting practice on your site. And horrible practices on uncrate, which actually used to be a favorite blog. I did a quick and simple technorati search and saw that 7 of the stories on his homepage today have been already done on other sites recently (within days) and saw
only one [via] thing. I agree with you completely that blogs shouldn't have to "follow the link chain, down the rabbit hole". But I think its the job of the internet community to uncover when people are doing things wrong. (kudos to the digg community btw for uncovering the engadget thing). Anyways, keep up the good work, just wanted to let you guys know. There are other sites that I have been noticing this with too, but have only been tracking it for a couple weeks, and uncrate seems like the major violator.
But to address what you're saying, the truth is that you've put your finger on a pretty gray area of blogging ethics. I mean, just WHO do you credit? The site you found the story on? Or the site that did the research, and originated the story? Or the site that cleaned up a crappy JPEG to make us enjoy the news item more?
To make things worse, as you pointed out with Uncrate, sometimes if you find a story, the site doesn't provide you with a direction to go to. In these cases, unless you've stumbled across the news item elsewhere before, there's really no way for you to know who to credit aside from the site you first found it on.
Also, as Bruce pointed out, there IS the faraway possibility that the person did originate the story on their own, though, as you've pointed out through your research, this doesn't seem to be the case with Uncrate. Sadly.
So, the question becomes: do you simply ignore the story, because it comes from a site you've branded as unethical? In my opinion, it depends. It depends on just what site it is. Some sites, smaller ones, have less of a responsibility to be ethical in my eyes (of course, in theory, everyone does, but in my reality, I ask myself "Who cares?" Obviously, you do, and maybe I should re-evaluate my standards.)
Nevertheless, you're left with a situation where you have to weigh the "loss" you incur from refraining to write an article about something, against the somewhat less tangible moral benefit you gain from avoiding sending traffic to a site that you've decided didn't deserve it.
In the end (and it would be hypocritical to pretend otherwise), we're really all in it for the money. Sure, we love entertaining others, and being read, but we put enormous amounts of time and effort in doing this, and most of us don't expect to do it for free.
Don't get me wrong, there certainly are exceptions, and I'd be curious to know just what proportion of bloggers do this for fun, and what proportion do it for financial gain.
In any case, Shari, thank you for pointing this out to me. To be honest, I hadn't even noticed. I can't promise you that I'll change anything, but I'm open to the idea.