Please do not quote entire articles in posts

[Ziggy Stardust]

Yes, because the argument we (the collective we) presented was that there was an 'entitlement' to quote entire articles with the explicit reason we could not be arsed to click on a link.

Cheers old man,

Ziggy - whippersnapper by nature.

 

[Silurian]

Glad to see this, actually. I've never really liked quoting entire articles. NYT or whatever organization put the time into writing and publishing the article and they deserve to have it, if you want to read the whole thing, read on their site as they want it presented.

There is no 'entitlement' to quote entire articles just because you (the collective you) don't want to be arsed to click on a link. Yeesh people, you're proving more and more that you're the "gimme generation" I want it, I want it now, and because I want it, I am entitled to it...

(I hope this was sufficiently snarky for my first post back after my little vacation )

I completely agree.

NYT etc get paid by the adverts on their sites. If they do not register hits on the site, the advertisers will not pay and then the site will have to go pay per view. So quote the most important part, name the source and provide a link.

Also if you post extracts from a couple of different sources etc rather than one long article that some people do not read because it is too long wouldn't that back your point of view better.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

On the other hand .... I bet discussion boards as these pointing out these articles will generate more hits on their site anyway. So a little love towards us from them for the free advertising we give them wouldn't go amiss.

 

[Mise]

If the thread looks like it's not written by an idiot then I'll usually click the link. Threads that cherry pick quotes from articles are usually written by idiots, so I tend not to click those links.

In any case, that's entirely beside the point. I don't care about NYT's profit and loss statement. I'm not a shareholder in NYT; I'm a poster on CFC, and as such, I only want that OT has good threads. OT is not going to have good threads if people are encouraged to cherry pick from articles, only post things that support their agenda, and ignore anything that doesn't support their agenda.

 

[Silurian]

I would say the little bit of love is allowing the posting of extracts not just a link.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

If the OP has link to a site dubious about spreading viruses, it's quite likely the thread will be closed for poor discussion quality too.

So if a usually reputable site should happen to get afflicted by a virus, spyware, etc. and spreads it to my computer, that means the thread's discussion quality is poor?

That makes NO SENSE AT ALL.

The link to the original article is also required for people to find out if the OP has been picking cherries. The rule doesn't forbid reading the original article fully.

If the article is for subscribers only and the issue is controversial and relies on things quoted, the thread will probably get closed anyhow.

Why would the thread probably get closed anyhow? Because the article is for subscribers only? Or because the issue is controversial? What if the thread would benefit from the posters being able to read the entire context but can't because it's subscription-only? (and I know that Context Is Very Important because that's one of the things I learned as a moderator here)

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Dear mods. Upon re-reading the rule, I apologize.

6a. When posting a discussion topic originating from a media article, you MUST post a link to the article as well give the context of what you wish to discuss.

I take it this means you will be firm on closing threads on people and dealing out them infractions who deliberately leave out parts of an article with regard to context that do not support their position and/or do not mention those parts in the article exist.

I don't remember this being a rule before and for that I applaud that part of the rule. I will be vigilant in reporting those who fail to provide context.

 

[Silurian]

If the thread looks like it's not written by an idiot then I'll usually click the link. Threads that cherry pick quotes from articles are usually written by idiots, so I tend not to click those links.

In any case, that's entirely beside the point. I don't care about NYT's profit and loss statement. I'm not a shareholder in NYT; I'm a poster on CFC, and as such, I only want that OT has good threads. OT is not going to have good threads if people are encouraged to cherry pick from articles, only post things that support their agenda, and ignore anything that doesn't support their agenda.

I hope you click my links

People quite frequently point out when people cherry pick already. Also some people get satisfaction proving that idiots are idiots. If people only post part of an article they have to read the article themselves if they do not want to make themselves look stupid, this can improve the quality of the discussion.

I don’t care about NYT's profit and loss statement but I do not want to pay to read it online. If you want quality threads people have to be able to provide quality sources to back up their arguments. If quality sources cannot get money from advertising they have to be provided by pay per view, donations, tax, patronage or cross subsidisation.

 

[Mise]

I hope you click my links

You aren't an idiot, no

People quite frequently point out when people cherry pick already. Also some people get satisfaction proving that idiots are idiots. If people only post part of an article they have to read the article themselves if they do not want to make themselves look stupid, this can improve the quality of the discussion.

You're basically arguing that making biased, idiotic and stupid OPs will improve the quality of discussion in OT. That's clearly wrong. I don't think I need to explain why having a bad OP is going to lead to bad discussion - there's evidence for that all around OT.

I don’t care about NYT's profit and loss statement but I do not want to pay to read it online. If you want quality threads people have to be able to provide quality sources to back up their arguments. If quality sources cannot get money from advertising they have to be provided by pay per view, donations, tax, patronage or cross subsidisation.

You already have to pay for the NYT online It has a paywall.

You may think that it's "right" that content creators are rewarded for creating content -- and I'd agree with you. But there's no need to go further and claim that making blatantly terrible OPs will improve discussion quality. Not only is it obviously wrong, but it's completely unnecessary. You can admit that quality will be degraded, but on balance, given that you, personally, have more to consider than merely the quality of threads in OT, quality degredation in OT is preferable to losing more content creators to paywalls.

I have a lot of sympathy for that POV. Maybe I can be convinced that quote snippets with a link to the article will prevent more sites becoming pay-per-view. Or maybe somebody else can convince me that having the full article with a link will increase revenue for ad-supported sites (and thus prevent them from becoming PPV), because it increases that website's profile and gives the site more cachet with more people.

Either way, it is completely irrelevant to what the moderators in OT should be doing. OT mods should be doing things that increase the quality of OPs. Telling people to put no more than 2 paragraphs from an article in their OP, and eliminating anything from the article that they don't want to discuss, is going to lead to a reduction in the quality of threads in OT. You say that posting the entire article might result in the content creator losing revenue, which might result in the content creator erecting a paywall, which might result in lower quality threads in OT at some point in the future. But that's a hell of a lot of "mights". I know for a fact that poor quality OPs will result in lower quality threads right now.

Ultimately, moderators should be trying to increase quality in OT, not policing the internet or ensuring the survival of billion-dollar publishing corporations. Their job is making sure that OT is a great place to hang out on the internet, and any rules or decisions should be driven by this sole motivation.

 

[Cutlass]

On the other hand .... I bet discussion boards as these pointing out these articles will generate more hits on their site anyway. So a little love towards us from them for the free advertising we give them wouldn't go amiss.

Businesses don't necessarily see it that way. Fox Broadcasting, for example, uses its lawyers to shut down and neuter fan sites for its TV shows, which would certainly be free advertising for said shows, and certainly can't cost Fox any money.

NYT has a better case. In that a full article does in fact allow people to avoid their revenue generators.

However, the fact that revenue generating ads are notoriously poorly protected from viruses, adware, and other forms of maliciousness means that the sites hosting those ads for revenue lose the moral high ground in that debate.

 

[madviking]

It just seems posting the entire article is more fair, since posting pieces of it allows for greater bias. I can easily imagine a poster taking an article on a contentious issue, and quoting it in such a way that makes it seem obviously biased. That's my concern about instituting the rule.

 

[Atticus]

OT is not going to have good threads if people are encouraged to cherry pick from articles, only post things that support their agenda, and ignore anything that doesn't support their agenda.

If there's nobody in the OT to check that the selection of quotes isn't biased, there's no hope for OT, no matter what are the rules. Quoting less than a whole article has always been allowed, so the cherry pickers will keep picking anyhow.

So if a usually reputable site should happen to get afflicted by a virus, spyware, etc. and spreads it to my computer, that means the thread's discussion quality is poor?

No, if the site is known to spread viruses. usually reputable sites don't do that. Following that line of thought you should avoid CFC too.

Why would the thread probably get closed anyhow? Because the article is for subscribers only? Or because the issue is controversial? What if the thread would benefit from the posters being able to read the entire context but can't because it's subscription-only? (and I know that Context Is Very Important because that's one of the things I learned as a moderator here)

That was the point. Other posters don't have equal access to the source. On the other hand, we allow to quote books etc that aren't available online for free, and people to discuss about them, so I wouldn't be too sure after all.

 

[Zelig]

So if I post entire articles that I've written and published somewhere else on the internet prior to CFC, are people allowed to quote me?

I could always edit my post to remove the article and then sue CFC.

And what if the original article is on a subscriber-only site? Then if we don't subscribe, we CAN'T read it.

Well, that's the entire point of requiring subscriptions.

 

[Silurian]

One thing; I do not assume that this rule applies only to OPs. It would not make sense anyway as someone would just post the whole article on the third or fourth post.

You're basically arguing that making biased, idiotic and stupid OPs will improve the quality of discussion in OT. That's clearly wrong. I don't think I need to explain why having a bad OP is going to lead to bad discussion - there's evidence for that all around OT.

If a person makes a post with a portion of an article that does not make it a bad post and a post with the whole article does not make it a good post. If people reads what they are posting they are less likely to make mistakes and more likely to understand what they are posting (and yes I do make mistakes as well see below.). It is easy to cut and paste a complete article, it requires more thought and understanding to select part of an article. If people understand what they are posting it is more likely that others will as well and so you will get a better discussion.

You already have to pay for the NYT online It has a paywall.

Yes my mistake

Ultimately, moderators should be trying to increase quality in OT, not policing the internet or ensuring the survival of billion-dollar publishing corporations. Their job is making sure that OT is a great place to hang out on the internet, and any rules or decisions should be driven by this sole motivation.

Some of the sources here are not on billion-dollar publishing corporations websites.

CFC OT is not in some moral and legal vacuum. The ultimate goal of the moderators should be to ensure the long term survival of CFC. If the moderators and staff do not take into account real life outside of CFC then CFC will get bitten at some point.

 

[Moss]

One thing; I do not assume that this rule applies only to OPs. It would not make sense anyway as someone would just post the whole article on the third or fourth post.

That is correct. This applies to any post and is not limited to OPs.

 

[Mise]

If there's nobody in the OT to check that the selection of quotes isn't biased, there's no hope for OT, no matter what are the rules.

What? That's a ridiculous thing to say. You might as well say that about any ******ed post that someone makes. "If there's nobody on OT to check that the OP isn't blatantly lying, there's no hope for OT, no matter what the rules are. Therefore, we should encourage people to state as many false things as possible in their posts, in order to keep OT on its toes."

Why create extra work for posters? Why ask people to make biased posts, and then tell us, "well, if you can't even be bothered to check the quotes for bias, then you're all hopeless"? Utter nonsense.

Quoting less than a whole article has always been allowed, so the cherry pickers will keep picking anyhow.

Except now, you're actively encouraging people to cherry pick articles, and remove anything that doesn't serve their agenda. This may be necessary and right for legal reasons, but it will clearly degrade the quality of threads.

As I said before, I'd be perfectly fine with this if you just did it out of fear of being sued. I'd happily stand by such a decision, if that were the thinking behind it. But if OT moderators think that biased and cherry picked OPs will lead to better threads then it's the OT moderators that have no hope, not us.

If a person makes a post with a portion of an article that does not make it a bad post and a post with the whole article does not make it a good post. If people reads what they are posting they are less likely to make mistakes and more likely to understand what they are posting (and yes I do make mistakes as well see below.). It is easy to cut and paste a complete article, it requires more thought and understanding to select part of an article. If people understand what they are posting it is more likely that others will as well and so you will get a better discussion.

This is just the same nonsense that Atticus is saying. You're trying to tell me that, if people go out of their way to cherry pick an article and make a biased OP, then the extra effort required to make a stupid post will result in better discussion. That's nonsense, complete and utter drivel. Why don't we encourage people to just post outright lies in their OPs? Surely that extra thought and understanding required to make believable lies will result in better quality discussions! If the OP understands that he is posting blatant lies, then it is more likely that others will as well, and so you will get a better discussion. Right?

You say that it takes more effort to cherry pick an article and make it utterly biased, and therefore that extra effort will make for better discussions, but just because you put effort into something doesn't mean that that effort is going towards something productive. You can put a lot of effort into calling me a complete and utter moron, maybe write it in iambic pentameter or make the first letter of every sentence spell out "MISE IS A COMPLETE AND UTTER MORON", but that's not going to magically make a thread better, is it?

We shouldn't be encouraging effort in the wrong directions. Creating a cherry picked, biased OP is the wrong direction, and OT moderators should not be encouraging that. OT moderators should be encouraging positive efforts, such as creating an unbiased, well rounded OP, not telling people to leave out the bits that they don't want people to talk about and only focusing on the bits that serve their agenda. They should be explicitly telling people to make their OP as unbiased, fair and open-ended as possible. They are doing the exact opposite, and this is stupid and wrong.

CFC OT is not in some moral and legal vacuum.

OT moderators are not in a legal vacuum, and if this policy was solely to prevent copyright issues, then I've already said that that's fine by me. But apparently, OT moderators truly believe that cherry-picked articles will benefit OT. That's just stupid.

The ultimate goal of the moderators should be to ensure the long term survival of CFC. If the moderators and staff do not take into account real life outside of CFC then CFC will get bitten at some point.

CFC may, possible, get "bitten", to varying and debatable degrees, at some unspecified point in the future. But this policy will, with 100% certainty, hurt OT, and it will do so right now. Not "maybe" "in the future", but will, right now.

And in any case, you may believe that the long-term survival depends on adhering to copyright laws. You may even be able to convince me of that as well. But that doesn't mean that cherry-picking articles to create biased OPs will magically result in good discussion. I'm quite open to honest trade-offs: I'm happy to say that we need to stop posting entire articles, because of copyright laws, or because OT's long term survival depends on it. But for god's sake, be honest about it. Don't try and tell me that deliberate bias and cherry-picking is a good thing. Don't punch me in the face then tell me it's for my own good, because it'll teach me to duck next time.

 

[GamezRule]

I would think that as long as you cite the source you should be legally in the clear.

 

[Camikaze]

Silurian is correct that OT doesn't exist in a vacuum. Not even just in regards to the real world, but to CFC as a whole. We aren't going to risk the future of CFC for the sake of some aspect of thread quality in OT. In the event of any problems, OT doesn't get sued; CFC does. That impacts on the entire Civ community. As much as one of the jobs of OT moderator is to ensure thread quality, it is entirely irrelevant to the decision to start enforcing this rule. Safeguarding the future of the site is far more important. Yes, this will in all likelihood lead to more cherrypicking (though as Ziggy points out, if it's blatant and over-the-top, that can lead to thread closure) and will in general lessen the quality of OT (though, as one of many factors, it's hard to say just how much of an effect it will have; contrary to what may be a popular impression, it's certainly not going to be the end of the world). When we say, 'at least OPs that highlight certain points are often clearer and easier to read', that's presenting the cloud's silver lining, not an attempt to sell this as an initiative to improve thread quality. So whilst the discussion on how this will impact on thread quality is nice and enlightening, it's not the point of this move at all.

RE: books- we would allow you to copy excerpts of books, but not large swathes or the whole thing, for the same reason (unless the book is out of copyright, I guess).

@Valka- RE: paywalls- I do believe that someone copying an article from behind a paywall and posting it here for everyone to see would be precisely what businesses are trying to stop. They have paywalls for a reason, and I don't really think you can complain about us stopping you from circumventing them. Paywalls seems a rather deliberate restriction that we'd be complicit in ignoring. The complaint should be directed towards those that have made that business decision.

 

[Mise]

Silurian is correct that OT doesn't exist in a vacuum. Not even just in regards to the real world, but to CFC as a whole. We aren't going to risk the future of CFC for the sake of some aspect of thread quality in OT. In the event of any problems, OT doesn't get sued; CFC does. That impacts on the entire Civ community. As much as one of the jobs of OT moderator is to ensure thread quality, it is entirely irrelevant to the decision to start enforcing this rule. Safeguarding the future of the site is far more important.

I acknowledged all of that, and have said, repeatedly, that I'd be perfectly happy with this rule if it were purely on copyright grounds. What pisses me off is when moderators try and tell us that this is actually going to result in "clearer" and "more focused" threads. That's BS.

Yes, this will in all likelihood lead to more cherrypicking (though as Ziggy points out, if it's blatant and over-the-top, that can lead to thread closure) and will in general lessen the quality of OT (though, as one of many factors, it's hard to say just how much of an effect it will have; contrary to what may be a popular impression, it's certainly not going to be the end of the world). When we say, 'at least OPs that highlight certain points are often clearer and easier to read', that's presenting the cloud's silver lining, not an attempt to sell this as an initiative to improve thread quality. So whilst the discussion on how this will impact on thread quality is nice and enlightening, it's not the point of this move at all.

THANK YOU FOR NOT BS'ING US.

Now can you tell Moss to edit his OP to remove the suggestion that this is a positive thing, and remove from the rules the suggestion the bolded part in the following:

This avoids copyright issues and helps give some focus to your thread.

If it's only about copyright issues, then get rid of this.

 

[Camikaze]

As a positive byproduct, posts that pick out specific lines in an article that they want to discuss, or that highlight the point they are trying to make, are much more clear and easier to read.

I guess you can read that as saying that this move will improve thread quality, but that's not what it is. 'As a positive byproduct' seems to me to be saying 'on the bright side', which necessarily implies that what has come before is not really a good/pleasant/positive thing. And what immediately preceded was this:

OT moderators have not really been enforcing this rule, and will start to do so due to concerns over copyright infringement.

Directly indicating that the change in enforcement policy is due to concerns over copyright infringement. The rest of the post doesn't read to me as BSing anyone, nor does the language of the rule itself. Although not quoting the entire article gives the opportunity for people to cherry pick, you do not have to diminish the quality of your OPs by abridging the article. You are not forced to cherry pick (because you are still quite able to provide the context). It is entirely possible to craft a good OP without posting the entire relevant article (and you can in fact create a better OP if you do a good, unbiased job of abridging particularly long articles). Given that you can't post an entire article, we want to encourage this as the next best thing, which seems to fit with encouraging 'posts that pick out specific lines in an article that they want to discuss, or that highlight the point they are trying to make, [which] are much more clear and easier to read.' It also seems to fit with encouraging abridgements that 'help give some focus to your thread' and that 'give the context of what you wish to discuss' (another part of rule 6).

But I guess how we've each read the individual posts in this thread is kinda irrelevant to whether or not anyone is trying to BS you (and the above paragraph isn't an attempt to BS you; that's how I read what has been written, informed by my interactions with other moderators, the site rules and this issue). Presumably an attempt by the moderation staff to BS you would involve some sort of deliberate and concerted effort to concoct a positive spin. I can tell you that in staff discussions about the issue there's never been a suggestion that this rule would improve thread quality (nor have such discussions ever actually focused on the impact on thread quality, because it's pretty irrelevant to the decision). The (very brief) discussion on how to present the change revolved around whether to post a locked or unlocked announcement (I guess BSing would be much easier if it's a locked one), not around how to sell the idea (because we're interested in conveying the non-negotiable change that had already to some extent been put into place, not in selling a potential change). Of course, we naturally prefer it if people are understanding about the situation, but that doesn't extend to an attempt to BS you. There has been no concocted spin.