A few years back, when WotC started releasing (or re-releasing) the classic TSR titles in PDF on RPGNow, I was excited and started posting their releases here at The Tavern nearly in realtime. As I do with reviews, I included the publisher's boilerplate. I also was including Shannon Appelcline's historical pieces that were attached after the boilerplate. I truly don't recall if I gave Shannon credit or not - but as his credit line is the last paragraph of each of the entries, I probably did. I'm an asshole if I didn't.
I was, however, accused of "stealing content" from OneBookShelf in a thread at ENWorld at the time and they were right. The boilerplate is legit, its the product description, but the historical summary? That's wasn't mine to copy the whole cloth of. Quote a few sentences perhaps, but refer back to the source for the rest.
I guess such social graces don't apply to ENWorld. Funniest part? They use the whole historical piece EXCEPT for the author's credit:
Here's the bottom part of the same article on RPGNow:
Oh, and I guess they no longer worry about mentioning articles with affiliate links have such links:
Notice the line just over the posts here at The Tavern?
Its not hard to do. And I mention it again on posts that have affiliate links.
I am far from perfect. I do, however, admit my mistakes and try to not repeat them. I find it amusing to see others commit the exact same mistakes they rightfully called me out on prior.
Mine is a bit buried, at the bottom of a dedicated links page: "Please assume that any links to these sites on my blog are affiliate links as I don't mark them individually."
ReplyDeleteEnworld is worth visiting for the Q&A threads with Gary Gygax. Once you have read those, there is no reason to visit that place again. None whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteThis... This Right Here....
Delete"Do as I say, not as I do ..."
ReplyDeleteEnWorld doesn't have to uphold the typical journalistic standards, because they aren't a news site..they are a "pay to play", totally bought commercial site that will advertise your product for bucks.
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ReplyDeleteI put my affiliate link mention in my About section of my site and also at the end of article that i have links into.. As you said, it's not that hard to do.. and you supposed to do it via what the FTC has to say...
ReplyDeleteAfter Morrus took something I posted in the forums and turned it into a front page "news item", completely re-wording a key section of the post to literally create the opposite meaning than what I intended... (without mentioning such change mind you)... ya... kinda woke me up to what sort of "news" site this is.
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