EDITORIAL - Sourcing for Dummies

[brakken]

Sourcing for Dummies

Running a console modification scene news site isn’t as easy as it seems. Behind the news posts and forums there is a lot of interaction between different “news” sites. Some of these interactions are good and some aren’t so good. This is the nature of the beast. If you’re one of those idealistic fools who thinks everyone can get along and there somewhere they is a place with dramatic events you’re head is probably stuck so far up your ass you can’t see daylight. Shit happens.

So what shit am I writing about today? It’s the practices of certain “scene” sites that leech off of others to turn a profit. I’m sure you’ve noticed the banners on TehSkeen and one might assume I make a great deal of money from the site which is very inaccurate. I charge a really low rate for the banners and make just about enough to host the site and get a pizza or two. Why would I do such thing when I could be making a ton of money? Well, I have my reasons, but money was never a motivator for me.

I joined the “scene” to help share information about console modification related news and homebrew. I wasn’t always a site operator and only decided to start TehSkeen after I ran into too many biased news sites. These sites would post news geared towards their sponsors filled with misinformation or complete lies. Their motivation for this was personal gain. One of the most annoying aspects of the misinformation being spread is the “source” of the information they’ve posted.

Sourcing is important if you’re running a “news” site. If you look at any major news syndication you’ll notice they always link to the source of an article they’ve written (unless, of course, they wrote it). This isn’t the case in this “scene”. Site administrators who post news get it from other sites and don’t link to the source. “So what?” a lot of “sceners” say. Well, if you can’t respect the fact that a news site isn’t sourcing their material then you are just as bad as them and more than likely in the scene to pirate material – so you opinion doesn’t really mean squat to someone that spends their own free time posting news and properly sourcing the material.

There are so many sites that don’t source that I could go on for hours about each one, but in this editorial I’ll be focusing my attention on a certain site which I won’t name due to the fact they don’t need any more traffic. This site, run by a person I’ll call Bill does its best not to source the material posted on its site. They either avoid sourcing at all or source to a site that gets the information from TehSkeen and doesn’t source from it.

My first example is sourcing for a release. A handful of emulator authors release their emulators on TehSkeen, but they also have SVN’s setup which contains their projects. When a new release is published on TehSkeen Mr. Bill will not source the release thread, but will source the SVN. Bill will also include the changlog from TehSkeen, but won’t source to the site. This can cause problems as the emulator author purposely posts his or her release(s) on TehSkeen for users. This benefits both the user and the coder as they have a place to communicate their findings on. It’s unfair to both them and me.

The second example I have is outside sourcing. Mr. Bill will post an article with a source, but the source will always be a foreign site (not English) that got its news from TehSkeen. If per say, this foreign site links to TehSkeen as their source Mr. Bill will link to the root of their site and not the article they wrote. This way their post quickly vanishes under more news and the people who follow the source link don’t hit the article with the source to TehSkeen, but instead are just brought to the main page. As its foreign most end users won’t be able to locate the original article therefore Mr. Bill has made it look like he’s sourced the material, but it’s a simple manipulation which has been done to avoid people finding TehSkeen.

The last example I have is a complete lack of sourcing and just using my articles as a basis for their own. Mr. Bill will visit my site (I have his IP range and it’s unique), get the new news and post it without any credit given to TehSkeen for finding it. Mr. Bill thinks he’s smart, but I think he should learn how to use proxies and I have ample logs of him visiting my page and minutes later the same stories appear on his site without any credit given.

I know, to the viewer, you might not really care who the source is as the average user is only interested in downloading and/or reading the article. However, there are some people who would like to track down the author or visit the original source for their own reasons which I shouldn’t have to explain. Sourcing is important to many people.

Mr. Bill is just one of many site operators who use these same tactics to post news on their site. There are a lot of other “scene” sites out there that roughly follow the same methods as Mr. Bill uses. Fortunately, a lot of sceners are aware of Mr. Bill and his site and know damn well what he is up to, but then again, there are a lot of newbies who sign up and are mislead by the site.

You see, I’m not after their traffic. I started TehSkeen five years ago any only recently has my visitor count increased. This is probably because I run an “honest” scene site and not one that just feeds off of others to propagate their site with copied articles to reel in people in hopes they will visit their sponsor links.

- brakken

[Venomous Fire]

I always feel you should source, or to use the common saying "Give credit where credit is due"

Ive written my fair share of xbox 360 tutorials, and I LOVE it when they are posted on other sites, as long as they link back to my original post. Not only just so I can get credit, but if the person needs help I cant help them on that site, and with the credit given, they can come ask questions to me personally.

[Venomous Fire]

-removed-

The people in the scene know this site and understand this site is where the news breaks first. The only people who wouldnt come to this site and are actually in the scene are pirates really.

Just my two cents though

[Venomous Fire]

hah, I set you straight, I loled

I just said my opinion

And I edited out the parts of my posts referring to that, we can pretend it never happened

[jdsony]

Nice, it's so true. There is a certain site I use to visit a lot for emu related news and they don't even link to author's pages for the emulator downloads. They just link to their own download pages where they obviously get more ad revenue. I'm not JUST looking for the download I want to read about it and know the history. I've also seen the same linking to the main news page which is useless as are articles with NO date stamp (This even happens on big news sites). I've been following 'the scene' for a long time and use to be involved on IRC but I just discovered this site. I found it due to my new interest in the old Gamecube, a more reliable console than my dead 360.

There's always drama and so many people quit because of it whether it's news writers, web admins or emulator authors. The internet seems to promote bad behaviour and bad treatment towards people performing free 'services'. I swear I didn't complain when I received that bad BJ from the free hooker.

[Diego_Maradona]

Hi guys,After waiting several months for this ebook to be released it seems that I really cant find this one. The bookstores over here dont want to order it for me, so my last chance is to request it over here..Does anyone know where to find Whileys "iPhone Application Development For Dummies"??Im really desperate to find this one, so if anyone can help, I would appreciate it.Thanks in advance

[squistigri]

Hi all i am new here, hope many will likes me here to stay in the community...