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"Rules" footnote on drop-posting?

Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 11:21 pm
by workinwifdakids
I'd like to suggest an addendum to the rules about drop-posting. In other words, should it be allowed to post the entirety of an article without the posting member's opinion or commentary?

I propose that a post referencing an outside article ought to contain a block quote of no more than a paragraph (with attribution), a link to the full article, and the posting member's comments in order to foster discussion here. Some areas of The Gun Counter seem to be turning into a document repository.

Re: "Rules" footnote on drop-posting?

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 12:37 am
by Combat Controller
That seems a reasonable point you have made, plus it keeps us clean as far as copyright attribution and fair use.

Re: "Rules" footnote on drop-posting?

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 3:14 pm
by Jericho941
workinwifdakids wrote:Some areas of The Gun Counter seem to be turning into a document repository.
Clicking on a thread and only getting a short, nondescriptive link in the body is a pet peeve of mine.

Re: "Rules" footnote on drop-posting?

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 2:01 am
by The Quiet Man
Somewhat like Jericho941...but not exactly! One of my peeves is clicking on a thread and finding a great big article (or even part of one) without any kind of commentary from the original poster. That can get kind of annoying as one of the reasons I'm here is to read what other (sorta) like-minded folks are thinking about stuff.

Re: "Rules" footnote on drop-posting?

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 5:17 am
by Dedicated_Dad
Thoughts:

I *USUALLY* try to post something descriptive if I'm just posting a link, mostly to entice others to go look because I think it's one of those "you've GOTTA see this..." things.

Sometimes I post something like that without comment because I want to see what you guys think of it - I don't want to kick off discussion in a certain direction...

If I find something online, I'll USUALLY post an appealing excerpt, only rarely will I post the whole thing, if it seems like an excerpt won't do it justice. ALWAYS link, though...

If something came in e-mail, I'll say so, but since I can't link the e-mail I've no real choice but to post it all...

/Thoughts...

Re: "Rules" footnote on drop-posting?

Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 7:54 am
by mekender
I know I am the worst offender simply because I am the most prolific poster.

The problem I have is that especially with articles that are sure to be controversial, news sources change their articles all the time.

Most notably this happens with breaking news, but I have seen it happen a LOT on political blogs too. Sometimes quoting the entire article is the only way to be sure that people will be able to read the damn thing. On blogs, it is not uncommon (especially in gun control discussions) for an author to post something idiotic and then when the gun community responds with comments challenging the post, the author deletes the entire post.

A perfect example is the news articles on the Ft Hood shootings. The first reports correctly identified the shooter as Islamic. Within a hour of the first reports, that information was nowhere to be found on any news site. It was not until there was overwhelming evidence that couldn't be ignored that the info started to filter back into the news stories.

Off the top of my head I can name at least 5 attacks that this same exact thing happened to when it came to talking about the background of the attacker. Most of those had completely white washed the attackers background within 24-48 hours of the initial story and that includes changing the story at the original link.

The same thing happened with the recent "machine pistol" shooting in NYC. Within 24 hours it had gone from a "machine pistol" to a "semi-automatic TEC-9" The AP is still calling it a MAC-10 which I seriously doubt that it was.

This is nothing new, go back and look at the accounts of the Oklahoma City Bombing. Few, if any articles will reference that authorities were looking for a middle eastern man seen with McVeigh several times before the bombing.

Some of the 9/11 conspiracy stories stem from the same white washing of news articles. NO I DONT BUY INTO THEM!!!

The Ministry of Truth did the exact same thing in 1984. The truth is the truth because we say it is. Unfortunately the news websites dont have a list of changes like Wikipedia articles do.

Or should we post screencaps instead?