I looked over Sterling's other posts before submitting a "this guy's stealing from pg" post, and came to a similar conclusion. I thought about it, and came to the conclusion that I don't like it, but it wasn't worth raising the alarm over. I still think this is a Bad Thing to do. His post didn't quote the whole thing, and links to the source, which are good. However, here are some of the things that bother me: He doesn't make it obvious that it is a quote -- the link doesn't have any helpful text; it's just a link. It doesn't say "from pg". He adds nothing of value. (This is arguably similar to reddit, boingboing, or, indeed, hacker news itself, but differs in that on those sites either a very small amount is quoted, or the quoting is obvious (see boingboing's quotes)).
So you're right -- this isn't plagarism, but I still think it's unethical, especially for someone at Wired.
So you're right -- this isn't plagarism, but I still think it's unethical, especially for someone at Wired.