Credit where credit is due

Something I do a lot of on this blog is quote from and point people to other articles of interest. I’m not alone in this. I usually quote the introductory few sentences or paragraphs depending on the length of the article, then link to the full article at its source.

It has never been my intention to imply that these articles were my work.

Recently an author of one of those articles saw the tweet of my post on Twitter and was offended that I had reposted their work and claimed it was mine. Again, that was not my attention, but looking at it I can see why the author thought that and I have apologized to them.

The problems on my end are the following:

  1. The tweets don’t include the original author’s name.
  2. My current theme does not format a block quote in any way that indicates it’s a quote.
  3. In some cases I’m quoting too much.

As a result I have already reduced the amount quoted in this particular case, have added some CSS to more highlight quotes as such, and added the original author’s name in the citation. In the future I will endeavor to reduce the amount quoted and include author names in the title of my posts so they’re included in the resulting tweets.

I’m a firm believer in not taking others’ work as my own and will do my best to make this clearer in the future.

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