Questions about using quotes from DU.

[brainshrub]

Yesterday I wrote a short essay for my website. For some reason it didn't sit right with me; As far as I could tell the spelling, grammar and sentence structure were okay... but something bothered me about what I had just written written.

This afternoon I looked at it again and I realized what was wrong: Several sentences of what I had written were quotes from posters on DU from this thread.

This got me to thinking: What is the netiquette for using or paraphrasing quotes from forums like DU? The more I thought about it, the more questions came to mind.

• Is that I wrote an original work or not?
  
• Should I have referenced the quotes?
  
• If so, what would have been the right way to do so?
  
• Should I have asked DUers if I could use their comments in my essay?
  
• What standard should I use to determine when/if I should ask?
  

To help this conversation, I am posting what I wrote here. Suspicious snips are in bold with a number referencing the quote in it's original context.

These conservative Americans are in denial about the causes of their problems. (1)The economic woes of this country aren't created by the illegal immigration of people, but by the legal migration of capital. Addressing outsourcing and the erosion of workers rights will require far more work and sacrifice than sitting around, drinking beer and looking across the Mexican border with binoculars. Rather than fight to change an exploitative system, (2) the Minutemen are the sort of people who prefer to project their anger, fear and frustration on a target with a face, preferably a face of a different color. If they really wanted to end the problems of illegal immigration they could demand an international living-wage law so that the workers in Mexico wouldn't need to cross the border to feed their families.

Of all the problems this country faces, illegal immigration ranks pretty low by any rational standard. This country faces two wars, a currency crisis, environmental degradation, a broken health-care system and a massive deficit. Fretting about illegal immigration in the face of these more pressing issues is like complaining about the food on a sinking ship.

By the way, the real reason the Minutemen are gearing up for activism in (3) October is because that's when temperatures in the Southwest go back to tolerable. Good to know these patriots won't be stressing out in the summer heat. Do they think there is no illegal immigration in the summer?

(1) DBoon -thread #10-
Title: esp corporate outsourcing
Text: why are these guys so worried about immigrants coming to work in low paid jobs, when all the high-skilled high-paid jobs are flowing in the other direction. It's capital migration that's killing us, not labor migration.

(2) Jade Fox -thread #21-
Title: Racism
Text: These guys are the sort who prefer to project their anger/fear/frustation on a target with a face, preferably a face of a different color.

(3) havocmom -thread #01-
Title: Cuz October is when temps in the Southwest get back to bareable!
Text: Good to know these patriots won't be stressing out in the summer heat. Do they think there are no illegals in summer?

[OldLeftieLawyer]

1. A simple rule:

If you didn't write it, give the author credit.

That's all.

Good for you for catching your own slip.

:toast:

[brainshrub]

2. But did I slip in the first place?

In the case of this essay, did I just plagiarize in the first place?

None of the comments were backed up with research or written in a formal journal. Does this mean that if I hear a good quip at a party, I have to reference it if I write it in an essay or story?

I understand the rules as it pertains to scholarly work, but not public internet forums.

:shrug:

[OldLeftieLawyer]

7. I'm not even sure I'd call it "plagiarize."

That's a fairly heady description of what took place. The ideas were yours, for the most part; all you did was copy (that's the operative verb, in my opinion) the phrasing used by others to enhance the concepts you were advancing.

When I write anything and submit it to my publisher, there's a different standard. And yet, I've had the unpleasant experience of hearing lines that I wrote - for fun - in a letter to someone end up in a movie written by that person, and, believe me, it's a drag.

If you were troubled enough to question it here, I would have guessed that you were honestly troubled. But, if you don't like what I posted to your dilemma, and answer with your own rationalization and a shrug emoticon, it would seem that you're not really troubled at all.

In that case, I guess you'd feel free to use the words of others without attribution and not be bothered. Really.

So, dilemma solved? Good for you. We all have our standards. Just don't get caught. That could be embarrassing, or, if you hear your words coming at you from a movie screen, lucrative.

[understandinglife]

11. "If you didn't write it, give the author credit." Agreed.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4173.htm


WE THE PEOPLE .... WILL NEVER FORGET

"... we sent our young people into harm's way without leveling with the American people." - Congresswoman Pelosi before Congress, 16 June 2005

Peace.


www.missionnotaccomplished.us - Impeachment of Bush and Cheney; indictment and prosecution of all members of the Bush regime who participated in the deception, should be campaign promises of any candidate worthy of our vote in the 2006 Congressional elections.

[havocmom]

3. You can use my remarks anytime. Just fix my typos! :- )

If it makes you feel better, you can attribute things. I don't always recall which brilliant DUer said what, as I am more concept-focused than detail oriented. I do try to mention when a point was originally raised by someone else and just deserves more audience.

My sig line this week, for instance, is based on a concept some brilliant DUer put our there as a bumper sticker idea. Not a direct quote, but somebody's idea taken a step or two further.

Feels better to be referenced by a fellow DUer than what the freepers do to what we write! Ever google your screen name?

[brainshrub]

4. Do you consider what you post in an internet forum copyrighted?

Thanks. I feel a bit better.

Do you consider what you post in an internet forum copywrited?

I don't know if it is. I suppose anything written on DU is either public property or DemocraticUnderground's property.

[sandnsea]

6. That's right

My random posts are public property or DU property. My posts from LUTD that I post here are copyrighted, in theory. But I'd never take somebody's posts and use them as my own on LUTD. If somebody has a particularly good post, I just ask them if I can blog it and they have always said yes.

[Nevilledog]

9. Never googled screen name before... interesting.

Apparently there is another "nevilledog" (wtf with someone else having the same screwy screen name) who posts quite frequently on a travel site. Looks like that "nevilledog" lives a more interesting life...LOL

I know, totally off topic, but it amused me.

[brainshrub]

12. Yes, I've Googled my screen name.

And it's scary. There are people out there who do nothing except archive the activities of specific DUers.


If a DUer ever gets embroiled in a controversy, every iota of what that person wrote will be analyzed.

[sandnsea]

5. 1&3 no, 2 yes

I have to presume you've read these ideas before, I've seen them in a cazillion articles so at some point they became conventional wisdom. There's lots of phrases that work their way into common usage, you can't go back and figure out who coined every single phrase. And I like your capital migration phrasing better anyway. 2 is a direct quote though, which is different.

[brainshrub]

8. What if I had written it this way:

What Jade Fox wrote: These guys are the sort who prefer to project their anger/fear/frustation on a target with a face, preferably a face of a different color.

Old: The Minutemen are the sort of people who prefer to project their anger, fear and frustration on a target with a face, preferably a face of a different color.

New: The Minutemen are the kind of people who prefer to project their fear, frustration and rage on an easier target, especially if that target has a different skin color.

[sandnsea]

10. Don't think so

The thing to me is that you coined a term with "capital migration". The other is just taking somebody's words and rearranging them as your own, which is plagiarism.

[havocmom]

13. Some time ago, several DUers told me Anderson Cooper used my exact

lines in an evening broadcast. Now, that seems sorta naughty. He could have at least attributed it to 'some smart ass on DU'. It was a pretty funny bit, as I recall. Would be nice to get more folks reading DU and getting better armed to fight the junta lies that way. If people knew how damned funny it is here sometimes, we would probably get more readers and make an even bigger impact in the fight to save America.

I know many of us will email links to specific threads to talking heads in hopes of getting info and brainstorming sessions out there to more people

I do believe anything anybody writes originally is copyright material though. Probably a good idea to attribute as much as possible when something strikes you as novel. There is much in the way of memes out there that get tosses around and there would be no way to attribute those. :shrug: If somebody wanted to get fussy about 'their' work, seems the burden of proof would be on them that no one else wrote it first. Sometimes a lot of minds will come up with exactly the same thought at the same juncture in time. It happens.