Hey, Slashdot, Where’s The Source?
I’ve never been Slashdotted, which of course, would be nice. But I’m not bitter. Still, every time I see /. report on a story I already did, I kinda wish I had gotten a link. But this is too much.
Tonight Slashdot reported (via an anonymous reader) that VisitorVille intelligence had launched, with the post citing all of my statistics from yesterday about the major tech companies and what search engines they use. What bothers me is that whoever posted this on Slashdot did not cite his/her sources, whether they were me or some other site. The only ones talking about VisitorVille intelligence before Slashdot were, according to Technorati (in order of posting):
- Google Blogoscoped - no statistics - 1 day 8 hours 28 minutes ago
- Myself - stats on Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo - 1 day 6 hours 25 minutes ago
- Stefano Demiliani - stats on Microsoft, Google, IBM, Apple, SUN, ORACLE, complete with data tables - 16 hours 51 minutes ago
- WebLeON - links to stats on Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AskJeeves, crediting myself and Blogoscoped - 16 hours 9 minutes ago
- UNEASY Silence - the exact sentences posted at Slashdot, time stamped 5 minutes before Slashdot! - 2 hours 39 minutes ago
So, what do I see? I see a post at Slashdot, 70% of which may have been plagiarized. Even if it wasn’t plagiarized, whoever posted it had to have read about VisitorVille Intelligence somewhere else, yet, once again, Slashdot fails to source. Why no link to any one of those sites, one of which most likely inspired the Slashdot poster? Are we to believe that poster discovered the site all by himself, and does not read any blogs other than Slashdot? Shouldn’t Slashdot insist on crediting? I’m not saying I deserved any credit, especially since UNEASY Silence may very well deserve all the credit. What bothers me is that if I deserved credit, I wouldn’t have gotten it, and credit on Slashdot is very important.
I apologize for ranting, but this sort of thing should bother anyone who cares about gaining an audience. Also, as a newspaperman, I don’t like any website that fails to source. Plus, I’m kinda pissed that VisitorVille got Slashdotted and I can’t get my site stats now.
I submitted an article on VisitorVille Intelligence to Slashdot before this one, but it got rejected. By the way the Slashdot article is here:
http://slashdot.org/articles/05/01/05/0122241.shtml?tid=95&tid=136&tid=109&tid=154&tid=1
Comment by Philipp Lenssen | January 5, 2005
PS: Unfortunately, the VisitorVille Intelligence server went down due to the Slashdot effect.
Comment by Philipp Lenssen | January 5, 2005
Maybe they were afraid of taking you down. /. effect.
Comment by Scott | January 5, 2005
Nathan, I am begining to doubt your motives. Are you just jealous?
Comment by who | January 5, 2005
On some level? Of course! Doesn’t everyone want to get Slashdotted?
A little update: I actually wound up talking to someone who claimed to be the anonymous poster, who showed me the site he got his information from, and admitted he probably should have sourced. Look, while most of this is just out of a little anger at a missed opportunity, I do know one thing: I’ve yelled at plenty of reporters for making the exact same mistake.
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | January 5, 2005
< a href="http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/wpn-45-20050105WhichSearchEnginesdoSearchEngineEmployeesUse.html">See, Andy knows how to source
Comment by Nathan Weinberg | January 5, 2005
I have visited your site 792-times
Comment by Visitor640 | July 15, 2007