An apology
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I wanted to apologize to some of my readers, particularly my feed readers, as well as pass on some info about duplicity in the blogging world.
You may have noticed a change in the way you are receiving the blog feeds. I am trying out the "short" feeds to see whether it will prevent blog scraping which I have recently experienced. I used to have my feeds set to "full", which is how I would like them to be, but I am not too happy when someone else takes my entire blog posting -- entire text & photos -- and then posts it on their own blog as if it were their own.
There is one such site which has done this and I thought you should be aware of this site especially if you are a knitter with a knitting blog. knittingclub dot org (no "www" in front of that) takes posts from other people's knitting blogs and posts it on their site. Yes! People do this!!! Can you believe that? Doesn't it make you mad? I am not happy about this at all. Unfortunately, there is no contact info on the site and it does not allow you to leave a comment.
(If you look at that site right now, you will see that two of my blog posts is right there on the front page, showing this post and this post.)
So for the time being, I have set my blog feeds to "short" in the hopes that it will minimize further blog scraping. I am truly sorry for having to do this and I understand how it may diminish the blog reading experience through blog readers.
I suspect that many of the "Big" bloggers set their feeds to "short" partly for the same reason (for example, Yarn Harlot and Grumperina).
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Posts
7 stitch(es):
I've never heard of blog scraping before. How awful. Particularly if they're pinching patterns that others have put together.
I'm a new reader. Just thought I'd say hi.
I usually just lurk and enjoy your blog, but perhaps I can offer a useful suggestion re: today's post. If you cannot contact the owner of the site, you should be able to contact the site host. Complain to them about the purloined material and they will investigate it and hopefully shut it down. Web hosts do not want their clients violating copyright--the host could also be held liable. You're a lot more likely to get prompt action if you deal with the web host directly.
How can they get away with blog scraping? It seems that they should not be able to take information from other people's blogs without permission. It would make me very angry to find my information on that site. I hope your attempts to foil them works.
I'm a knitter with a knitting blog, but most computer stuff goes right over my head, hence, most of what you just said was Greek to me. I am subscribed to your feed through Google Reader.
That is just infuriating. I second Judy-lynne's suggestion about contacting the host.
Also, didn't I read about this somewhere else on the craft-o-sphere recently? I wish I could remember who that was because they had several helpful links for this situation. I'll see if I can't rummage that up for you.
The best of luck to you!
I had not heard of blog scraping before. Unbelievable the stuff some people do!!! I use google reader but it's easy enough to click over to the blog. Reader just helps me keep track of blogs I like to follow so it's no bigger for me. Thanks for blogging.
Anna
I had not heard of blog scraping either. Thanks for the tip. I have already changed the feed setting on my blog.
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