Word Soup

I'm not a huge fan of Ars Technica's tendency to not credit their sources. Even if I really like their original work (hardware guides, etc.) and agree with the vast majority of their editorial positions, they do have a tendency to take say a Reuters report, reconstitute it, and then pretend it's original reporting to drum up digg and Slashdot traffic.

I can cite a number of examples during the past two years of Ars failing to give credit to websites they're culling information from, and I know we're (Broadband Reports) not the only one to notice. Hugs and kisses aren't necessary, and it's clear we're not talking about breaking Watergate here, but linking to the originating source when the information trail is painfully obvious is just good form.

Unfortunately REALLY generating original, breaking news content of any kind is very,very rare (particularly if you're on a budget or are a one man show like I am). By and large, most of us are forced to simply point at other outlets and mutter our sometimes useful and occasionally original observations until we bump into something unique ourselves.

I know a lot of websites get around this instead by taking existing news reports and reconstituting them (sans link) as original reporting. News is an ongoing discussion now; I think that's the whole point of the transition away from talking head cable news and push print media. I guess I could reconstitute reports from the AP and then submit my pieces to digg and Slashdot to increase traffic flow and revenue, but the practice is disingenuous at best.

Update: looks like Ars noticed this post and gave credit to our users. Thank you, guys/gals.

Update 2: BetaNews sees the piece at Ars and links to us instead. Traffic Ars would have seen then goes to the site/user that actually discovered the new policy. Weird.