ADMIN Codified rule for posting news stories on TB

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
After several weeks of debate, the staff and I have come up with a rule for the posting of news stories on the forum.

ALL original posts that start a thread MUST have the entire story, start to finish, unless its impractical due to extreme length or for other technical reasons. (If so, the member needs to insert a notice at the end, something to the effect of: "Was unable to post story content because..." However, that has to be legit, rather than a person's blanket excuse for never posting content.) The story must also include the attribution and link to the original story. OPs that do not contain this content will be deleted and the thread starter will receive an infraction.

ALL videos must contain a synopsis of the content. Video OPs MUST use the VIDEO prefix for clarity.

Posts WITHIN a thread that have additional information or related stories must contain at least ONE FOURTH TO ONE THIRD of the entire story's content, as well as the aforementioned attribution and link, again with the entire story content strongly preferred.

The only exception to this policy will be if the poster discusses their formatting intent with the staff (such as the Four Horsemen threads) and that a SUMMARY of multiple news stories is the intent of the post.

Again, threads that do not meet these criteria will be deleted and the member infracted. If the infractions continue, the member will be sanctioned to the point of no longer being able to post original threads or removal from the forum. TB2K is not a "link clearing house." If you cannot post news stories following these requirements, please don't post news threads.

Thanks.

Dennis


ADDENDUM: Over time, news story thread titles have often been “editorialized” by the members posting them. This leads to more duplicate threads. In the interest of assisting others in identifying threads and minimizing dups, it is necessary that news stories use the actual story headline as the thread title, unless it doesn’t fit. In that case, judicious shortening is fine as long as the meaning of the headline is substantially preserved. Feel free to editorialize either at the top of the story itself, or in a reply.
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Dennis, my brain is officially fried at the moment. I've always posted in total and with the appropriate linkage but define "attribution" for me. Sorry for sounding like the proverbial idiot.
 

maric

Short but deadly
Just a quick queston for clarification. What do mean by attribution? Do you mean the source of the story? i.e. NY times? Or the Author of the story?

ETA: Nevermind. I see it was answered AFTER I hit reply.
 

tm1439m

Veteran Member
I have never noticed the "VIDEO" option until just now. I have always posted in the "PLAY" category.

Is " VIDEO" a new option? Or have I just been blind all this time?
 

Laurane

Canadian Loonie
It would be more considerate if people would use the 1/4 to 1/3 of the original story when they are making a comment.......and NOT just pasting the whole thing......that is very annoying when you have many inches of screen to scroll down that has just been pasted, and someone has written "AGREE" or some other succinct phrase. Or just paste some sentences in bold what you are agreeing with.......or agree with all the above in OP. Quit wasting paper!! (bandwidth) LOL
 

Haybails

When In Doubt, Throttle Out!
After several weeks of debate, the staff and I have come up with a rule for the posting of news stories on the forum....
ALL videos must contain a synopsis of the content. Video OPs MUST use the VIDEO prefix for clarity.
....Dennis

Thanx Dennis! Would love to see "External links" added to this synopsis rule.

Thanx, again,


HB
 

Wise Owl

Deceased
THANK YOU Dennis....!!!!

I hate it when there has only been a snipped part of a story. Takes forever on dialup to go to the site and wait for it to load. Tb2k loads a lot faster and I can read more news here faster. This is one of main reasons I don't frequent a lot of other news forums.

Thank you again and the other admins.
 

Magdalen

Veteran Member
Thanks for the codification. One question: Is there some definition of extreme length? I once came across an interesting article that ran to eight pages as a word document and thought it would be too taxing. Barring a definitive minimum length, is there a ballpark range?

Thanks in advance.

magdalen
 

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
Thanks for the codification. One question: Is there some definition of extreme length? I once came across an interesting article that ran to eight pages as a word document and thought it would be too taxing. Barring a definitive minimum length, is there a ballpark range?

Thanks in advance.

magdalen


I would consider THAT extreme lengtn, put the length of the article, ie 8 pages, near your thread title in the body!

K-
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
You know, it's really up to the individual to make their own determination. If YOU feel it's too long, copy the parts of it you think most valuable, as long as it represents a sufficient quantity to get decent info from. Lots of people add "(long)" to the thread title if its really long. I guess it's one of those "I'll know it when I see it" kinds of things.
 

Double_A

TB Fanatic
GOOD

TB2K is only as good as it's content, when content is lacking so is this forum.

Links to content or videos add value as only as those links are good. A forum full of video content that resides on another site is only valuable if that site is up and running.

If content is not HERE it's not here.
 

Hansa44

Justine Case
It would be more considerate if people would use the 1/4 to 1/3 of the original story when they are making a comment.......and NOT just pasting the whole thing......that is very annoying when you have many inches of screen to scroll down that has just been pasted, and someone has written "AGREE" or some other succinct phrase. Or just paste some sentences in bold what you are agreeing with.......or agree with all the above in OP. Quit wasting paper!! (bandwidth) LOL


I'm in complete agreement with this annoying habit some people have replying with the quote, only to have them say they agree with the op. I've seen 6 or 8 people do this in one thread and so far I've kept my mouth shut. It's ok to do this with a short quote but when it's a LONG copy of someone's opinion over and over I usually say screw it and don't even bother looking for comments from our members.
 

Possible Impact

TB Fanatic
It would be more considerate if people would use the 1/4 to 1/3 of the original story when they are making a comment... (snip) Or just paste some sentences in bold what you are agreeing with....(snip)

(snip) to designate a removed section is handy too.

(I really wanted to just quote you and put "agree") :groucho:
((But, I agreed too much))
 

Petunia

Veteran Member
I just found this instruction pretty far down the list of threads on Sunday -- could you please link it up higher -- I almost missed it.

What is a news story? Is a white paper or a scholarly paper or a blog musing or opinion piece? Does this rule apply to material posted from foreign sources?

And what is lengthy?

Thank you.
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
"I'm having roast cat for dinner" or "The dog ate my carpet" are personal interest/blog type stuff. Those don't count. If you're copying something from somewhere to inform the membership, that DOES count. Basically, unless it is egregiously long, the entire content needs to be posted.
 

Jubilee on Earth

Veteran Member
And I just want to be clear, there is no copyright violation in reposting any/all news stories in their entirety here? Not asking to be obstinate. I've just always been taught that unless a story is labeled fair use, there are copyright prohibitions to cutting and pasting content. I'm open to being educated if the rules have changed.
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
As forum owner, if I get a request to remove, I honor it every time. Since this website is really not for profit, we're in a somewhat better position than a site like Drudge for example. And again, full attribution and link to the original is MANDATORY.
 

Melodi

Disaster Cat
No problem, I got out of the habit of posting entire stories during the "issues" a couple of years back but I have no problem returning to do so - unless it is very long in which case the first page or two should be enough with a link and notation that it is a long read.
 

Penguin Zen

Veteran Member
And I just want to be clear, there is no copyright violation in reposting any/all news stories in their entirety here? Not asking to be obstinate. I've just always been taught that unless a story is labeled fair use, there are copyright prohibitions to cutting and pasting content. I'm open to being educated if the rules have changed.

That was going to be my question..I try to copy and paste most of story so people understand what I saw post worthy ..but I thought we were not suppose to copy entire article because of copyright issues.

Sorry Dennis answered my ?? while I was posting ..I understand now ...
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
The members of the original TB2K posted entire articles from Day One. Those members also started this incarnation. We weren't timid about needing to have original stories in their entirety, particularly since many of the stories were so important. Members who came along later were, well, more timid shall we say? The staff has discussed this for weeks. There is no attempt to make a profit from the posts. Full attribution and links are required as a requisite component of the material being posted.

That's as clear as I know how to make it. Those of you who are too afraid to post entire stories are entirely free to not post news stories at all. You can limit your posts to responding to those who do. No problem.
 

CGTech

Has No Life - Lives on TB
ALL videos must contain a synopsis of the content. Video OPs MUST use the VIDEO prefix for clarity.

Clarification on this Dennis, for youtube videos, is the youtube synopsis sufficient, or do you require a far more extensive one we write ourselves?
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
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Depends. Gotta be descriptive enough for people. If the supplied description is adequate, that's fine. If you personally feel that it's too brief or not descriptive enough, add something.
 

Songbird7777777

Membership Revoked
And I just want to be clear, there is no copyright violation in reposting any/all news stories in their entirety here? Not asking to be obstinate. I've just always been taught that unless a story is labeled fair use, there are copyright prohibitions to cutting and pasting content. I'm open to being educated if the rules have changed.

My concerns, exactly!
Thank you, Dennis, for the answer!
 

milkydoo

Inactive
On occasion there is a news story that covers multiple subjects, but the OP is only interested in discussing one of the subjects in the story. In the past, I have simply copied the section that relates to the subject I am presenting for discussion in the thread, and left out the rest, typically with a 'snip', and an explanation that 'the rest of the story is of another subject'. I assume this is acceptable?
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
That's fine too. I normally post the entire story because usually the other topics are related, but it's not mandatory. I might then say something like:

"Story covers additional topics at link."

That'd cover it.
 

Possible Impact

TB Fanatic
Depends. Gotta be descriptive enough for people. If the supplied description is adequate, that's fine. If you personally feel that it's too brief or not descriptive enough, add something.

I guess my Arabic language YouTube videos from Gaza and Egypt
are gonna need a little translation.
(A bunch of young dudes throwin' rocks, A phalanx of police shootin' teargas)
(Angry man with a beard shoutin' and waving his hands)

The speech and narrative videos I try to find and post a "professional" english transcript.
(without the transcript it really is not worth much...)
 

Possible Impact

TB Fanatic
What about posts that contain a whole page or more of Tweets, each with an abbreviated link?

I think that is a rapidly evolving way of reporting REALTIME news.
The journalists(accredited, freelance, or amateur)
are putting more and more real information out in twitter only format.

When a rocket is seen launching by a journalist in Damascus,
who posts the video on YouTube, and tweets "Rocket launch , headed south".
the real time aspect of the information might give a little leeway to strict documentation
of information flow.

I try to replace the abbreviated link with the full final URL of links in tweets.
(I'm not limited to 140 characters here...)

I also put the URL link to the actual tweet in my posts. You can go back and click the link
and get the tweet with all replies that way. You can also get the authors other tweets and lists.

But, I also like MzKitty's style of Tweetgrid capture as well. She doesn't have the URL available in that format.
 

Ravekid

Veteran Member
As forum owner, if I get a request to remove, I honor it every time. Since this website is really not for profit, we're in a somewhat better position than a site like Drudge for example. And again, full attribution and link to the original is MANDATORY.

Dennis or other admins,

Don't folks who run websites such as this get a pass anyway for copyright violations so long as they abide by a cease and desist order? What about the person who actually post the story...are they protected? I can see the requirement to having a board owner/admin getting a cease and desist order before any lawsuit, but what about posters who aren't affiliated in any way but being a member? What is the current case law on this subject...if anyone knows.
 
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