
I'm not a "curator" - rkudeshi
http://www.marco.org/2012/03/12/not-a-curator
======
zalew
> I didn’t even know the difference between “via” and “hat tip” until today.

I still don't know. What is this hat tip?

Frankly I never understood the concept of 'stealing' links. Once ago a friend
on fb got very offended that I posted a link which was on his fanpage without
'via', like everybody is obligated to advertise random sources for stuff that
already have thousands of views/shares. Maybe back in the day linking was
worth something and I remember all those linkblogs like halfproject,
surfstation, k10k, etc., but today with all those tumblrs and other tools to
aggregate, suggest, reshare, cross-post, I don't see any particular value in
clicking 'share/repost/+1' that needs to be credited. I'm with Marco on this
_But regardless of how much time it takes to find interesting links every day,
I don’t think most intermediaries deserve credit for simply sharing a link to
someone else’s work._

~~~
rmccue
I think "via" is the original source, and "hat tip" is how you found it (i.e.
another site that linked to it).

(Or the other way around. I agree with Marco on that one, I think it's
confusing.)

~~~
Steko
Curators Code wants it to mean this but that's not what it means in my
experience.

In practice there is 90% overlap between these terms and both denote the
tertiary source you became aware of the link through.

The difference when it exists is that "HT" is less likely to add anything you
don't see in the source whereas "via" will sometimes be worth clicking through
to see that person's insight.

Hat Tip:

A -> B -> Me

B added nothing, you should visit A for the source. Goodwill link to B, you
should check out his site.

Via:

A -> B -> Me

B may have added something. You should visit A for the source and if you have
time B might be worth it.

------
pessimizer
Via links and hat tips help me find other "curators" who I might be interested
in. It's a service to the reader, and in addition directs traffic to blogs
that the hat tipper has clearly found useful at least once. Consider it
federation, if that helps; an aid to discovery.

------
sp332
I don't think it's about morality or legality. It's just about being nice, and
it's cool. I get a "via" shout-out from The Verge once when I tracked down an
official contradiction to one of their rumor-articles. It was nice of them to
mention that I was the one who found the info for them. (This was especially
true since they're a professional blog and I didn't get any other compensation
for doing their legwork for them.)

~~~
josephcooney
Isn't morality == 'being nice'

~~~
CodeMage
Nope. Morality is about doing the right thing. Being nice to someone isn't
always the right thing. The whole point of this article was to debate whether
being nice is the right thing when it comes to linking to tertiary sources.

------
namedpipe
The "Curator's Code" is an attempt to make things better on the web for sites
that aggregate and curate content. It's definitely not perfect but Marco's
complaint is pointless. His complaint amounts to "Sure, I try to drive the
speed limit. BUT THERE ARE ALREADY SPEEDERS OUT THERE!!! So screw the speed
limit."

Despite his throw-out-the-baby-and-bathwater approach, the discussion is worth
having instead of dismissing the idea wholesale.

The NYT article he refers to covers the modest goals quite well. It's not a
panacea that is just about using "via" and "hat tip" correctly. It's about
making attribution clearer and putting in place some guidelines about
attributing things to the original source.

~~~
Apple-Guy
The problem is that New York Times and certain big media sites were recently
caught copying / rewriting blogger posts without linking or crediting the
source.

Perhaps two odd symbols will solve the problem.

------
andrewfelix
As interesting as Marco's discussion points are, his writing style makes me
imagine him frothing at the mouth and spitting his words.

He never takes a marginal approach to an issue. There's a clear line down the
middle and he is well and truly on one side.

~~~
sunkencity
>He never takes a marginal approach to an issue.

Who does and is interesting to read?

~~~
davidw
That's easy, Tyler Cowen with "marginal revolution" :-)

Not everyone enjoys the Zed Shaw style spit-flecked rant, some of us enjoy
reading thoughtful commentators who are not %150 sure of themselves.

~~~
wpietri
Amen, brother. If somebody can't do anything but rant, I won't bother with
'em. It's lazy; they're making me do all the work of evaluating when their
limbic eruptions are legitimate.

------
Mjux
I understand the same content works by businessinsider brought this in
context.

Businessinsider apology types - "We don't "scrape" content, at least not in
the way Marco thinks we do.." ([http://businessinsider.com/marco-arment-
business-insider-201...](http://businessinsider.com/marco-arment-business-
insider-2011-9?op=1))

Cameron koczon in <http://m.alistapart.com/articles/orbital-content/>
mentioned the same orbital content strategy, which my blog coverage -
<http://mjux.tumblr.com/tagged/strategy> on aggregation and curation. The
whole point of ".. this transformation of our relationship with content will
force us to rethink existing reputation, distribution, and monetization
models—and all for the better."

    
    
      is move away from "read once and save".
    

Similar judgement - <http://twitter.com/mjUX/statuses/169836710174277632> "
content + credits reads as the only #contentstrategy."

The via and h/t links make the same flaws but place only bits for twitter
content.

    
    
      /edit: As much I enjoy the apropos elements in instapaper. It provides the same "context and immediacy" in twitter - http://twitter.com/mjux/statuses/179422000517873666

------
justinph
Curators work at museums.

~~~
chimeracoder
This is a big pet peeve of mine. 'Curate' doesn't mean 'select a list of
things I like and think other people will like'. Overusing and misusing words
eventually causes them to lose their meaning altogether.

~~~
pessimizer
It's not a list of things when dealing with links, it's the actual things, and
as far as I know that's exactly the meaning of 'curate.'

------
nikcub
Good post. Both HT and via have been part of blogging since the beginning.
Creating a new icon and standards page won't stop the re-bloggers from re-
blogging and not attributing.

I have started working on a technical solution to news attribution. The
original Atom spec had a definition for a 'source', which isn't being used. It
didn't get adapted into hNews. I am working on extending Microdata so that
links to the main source of the story can be attributed and read by search
engines and aggregators.

The idea is that with the support of search engines blogs and websites that
don't properly attribute with microdata markup can be penalized as duplicate
content. A lot of the re-blogging content networks rely on search referrals
for traffic and revenue, and referrals from aggregators for readers. This
would also solve the problem where stories from wire sources such as Reuters
and AP are republished hundreds of times on hundreds of different news sites
and pollute search results.

The standards already exist, they just need to be documented and adapted (and
added to the BlogPost schema[1]). It just as important for applications to be
able to read attribution links as it is for readers.

for eg. at the moment when Business Insider reposts one of Marco's posts there
is no way for a crawler to know which is the original. Microdata can help that
and help keep mirrored or ripped content out of search engines and aggregators
(like Google News, etc.)

The other problem I have with this group is that the entire committee is made
up of representatives from large media companies, and they are all writers.
Not a single independent blog, or indy blogger represented, or part-time
blogger, or designer, or programmer, or software implementor, etc.

[1] <http://schema.org/BlogPosting>

------
nchlswu
Proper attribution has been a part of the web since... well since forever.

I think this is a great article because the idea of curation has and is
continuing to become something that's very trendy. And of course, with trends,
people feel the need to redefine things that often don't need to be redefined.
(And on the way they're bastardizing the meaning of curation as well)

Marco hits on a number of great points and the notion of being credited for
discovery is a huge one. Like many ideas (startups, creative or otherwise),
discoveries can happen in parallel. Discovery tends to be heavily overrated

------
frobozz
The choice of symbol for via is confusingly similar to an out-of-range symbol.

If I saw it in a piece, I would think that someone had tried to use some
clever bullet point without specifying the character set properly.

------
Aissen
Funny, in my head the meaning of those was always inverted:

\- via, means which way you passed "through" before getting the information.
It's the site/blog/curator that sent you to the original…

\- source, is the source of the information _on the internet_. Sometimes
information comes from non-public press statements, real world interviews, or
other media. But the website that publishes the information, is IMHO the one
deserving the "source" link (and the only one to which we can _effectively_
link).

------
user2459
This might just be the largest rich people problem I've ever heard of. Re-
appropriating copyright doesn't need a justification, just continue to do it
and stop pretending like you really care about the original artist more than
they can bring you visitors.

~~~
zalew
They don't even pertend to care about the original artist, they pretend to
care about the middleman who told them about the artist. You're one [share]
button click away from calling yourself a 'curator'.

