

BackType Launches Wordpress Plugin to Connect Conversations - konsl
http://blog.backtype.com/2009/04/backtype-connect-wordpress-plugin

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konsl
The plugin works with Hacker News comments too - this conversation will be
mirrored on our blog

More info: <http://www.backtype.com/plugins/connect>

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bemmu
Is there a Firefox plugin so I could see conversations about whatever page I
happen to be browsing now?

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omakase
No, but I really want that to. We have a bookmarklet that is sort of similar,
but not quite there. I know of one tool being built with our API, that will be
released soon that solves this problem. We'll mention it on our blog when it
comes out.

~~~
wesley
It's alive! <http://convotrack.com>

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amouat
I'm not too convinced at the minute. The problem is that everyone here (hacker
news) is having their own little converstation about this and it's the same
for reddit etc. When you stick all this into one list, you are losing context.

What if someone replies on the blog to a hacker news comment? Good chance the
hacker news reader will never see the reply.

Perhaps it would be better if all the different comment systems were grouped
independently?

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philwelch
It would also be nice if tree-structured discussions (like HN) were preserved
instead of just hacked apart into series of seemingly unrelated comments.
Grouping together HN comments without the tree structure would be far less
useful than respecting tree-structured discussions but intermixing trees from
different sites.

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omakase
Fully agree. Threading is high on our list.

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dmix
Will I have to uninstall Disqus to get this work? Is there a way to migrate to
BackType's connect or combine the two?

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konsl
Unfortunately they don't work together. If you use our plugin with Disqus
enabled, it will just show the "Summary" of activity above the comment
section.

Disqus has their own "Social Media Comments" you might want to look into.

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halo
So you're taking content written on other sites, scraping it without
permission of the original authors or site owners, and reproducing wholesale
on your site? This is unethical at best and outright illegal at worst.

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wesley
Backtype obeys robots.txt rules. That said, the value a system like this adds
outweighs the cons for me.

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halo
So what? A lack of a robots.txt rule doesn't imply "I can take other people's
content, reproduce it wholesale, remove it from context, and put it on other
people's sites or otherwise do what I want to it" does it? A lack of a
robots.txt rule doesn't imply "I can ignore copyright law" does it? A lack of
a robots.txt rule doesn't imply that the /author/ of the stolen content,
perhaps with some suggestion of an implicit endorsement, wants it shown on
some random 3rd party site does it?

I'm sorry for being so old fashioned as believing in the simple concept that
when I comment on site A it doesn't mean I automatically want it reproduced in
full on site B, C, D and E. I'm sorry for being so old fashioned in believing
that as the author it removes value from /my work/. I'm sorry for being so old
fashioned for complaining when these "advantages" aren't "advantages" for me
but rather some 3rd party company or blog who are trying to profit from my
work instead, perhaps even suggesting some implied endorsement, and being so
old fashioned to /dare/ raise an objection when they try and do so.

Sorry for being so old fashioned that thinking that any company that is based
around the concept of taking other people's content and reproducing it
wholesale without considering the wishes of the copyright owners or authors is
fundamentally flawed as a business and raises many dubious ethical and legal
questions.

Or, perhaps, I should put my objections in a more concise manner that you'll
understand. How can I, as an author, do this:

    
    
      User-agent: *
      Disallow-Author: Halo
    

Or, perhaps the bigger bolder question I want answered is /why/ should I have
to do that, and what makes you believe you have the right to take my rights
away from me? Why is it more acceptable to take this same prose and put it
elsewhere as I wrote it as a comment instead of an article? And, no, "adding
value" isn't a one-stop shop get-out clause; grave robbers added value as
well, afterall.

Oh, and your site doesn't seem to support people who edit their comments
correctly; they appear as duplicates.

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rantfoil
Do you dislike being indexed by Google as well? How is Backtype any different?

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halo
Does Google scrape content in whole, separate them from the original page and
reuse them on other people's commercial websites without my permission?
Y'know, the same difference between Google and a website that steals articles
from other sites and reproduces them in whole for ad revenue, which is exactly
what this site does but because 'it's comments' it's suddenly magically
considered okay?

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fallentimes
But isn't that up to the blog/site owner whether or not they want to be
included in Backtype? And if the users don't like it one way or the other they
can choose to go elsewhere.

I guess I've never viewed my comments on other people's sites with such strong
ownership.

~~~
halo
It is up to the owner (and their terms and conditions, natch). But it should
be opt-in, the same way any other sort of permissive content licensing is
explicitly opt-in, and the same way it's bad form to take content that isn't
permissively licensed and reuse it on other sites without explicit permission.
There's no reason why taking comment content should be treated differently
from taking article content.

Hijacking other people's content without permission should not be considered a
business model.

And for all the people who have modded me down, why? Explain the flaw in my
logic, or is it a case of "Well, I like it and he doesn't so I'll mod him
down"?

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noor420
thanks a lot backtype!

