A fair question. Deserves a fair answer.
Let's get very specific. Poet has a practice, which I think is great (let's forget the copyright violation issues for the moment) of posting articles from the New York Times which she thinks are interesting. Now, those aren't her words at all. She may post an opening line, something like "I found this interesting," but other than that, it's simply a copy of a NYT column.
Now, suppose I come across one of these she's posted that raises an issue I want to discuss. What are my options? I clearly couldn't post my response in the form of a direct reply to her post. So I would have to find some other way, which isn't hard -- either a new post to the thread moderator, or an off-topic response to some other post. Those are the only two options.
Now, how do I indicate what it is I'm referring to, so people who read my post can make sense of it? There are only three ways I can see. One is to include a cite to the post in my response. "Concerning the NYT article posted in ____, I think ..." A second is to quote from the article. Since I don't have access to the NYT on the web, this would be copying and pasting from Poet's post. The third is to paraphrase, but with sufficient completeness that it's clear what post I'm referring to.
I raised this issue in PM with one of the people involved in this discussion. The response, as I understood it, was that none of these three would be acceptable; all of them would constitute improper posting to or about Poet. The rule proposed for me was that if there wasn't already a vigorous discussion of that topic going on such that I could clearly respond to other peoples responses without any suggestion that I was responding to the initial post (or to any points Poet had made during the disucssion unless the same points had been made by others so I could respond to the points as those poster's points, not as Poet's points) I should just not make any response, not involve myself in that particular discussion, but move on to some other topic.
You may think that was an okay answer. I didn't. I'm not willing to try to figure out how many people would constitute a vigorous discussion such that I was allowed to enter into it, and how few wouldn't. I am not willing to agree to a restriction that great on my ability to engage in discussions on topics that interest me.
If you think I'm wrong in this, feel free to say so. But frankly, I don't think my position is unreasonable. |
