Wait, did @vasta just delete his microblog account?
@kerim His posts were being reposted in full by another blogger via a tool the blogger developer. The blogger refused to accept what he did was wrong. I do hope Sameer reconsiders and comes back.
@Ron @pratik Please, no name-calling. You can see @mal's reply on his blog here because he's never even posted to Micro.blog. I've been working with the IndieWeb community to improve the guidelines around these "reposts" so that we can learn from this and minimize confusion in the future. Thanks everyone.
@manton I'm in favor of no "name calling" too. But I agree with Sameer. In his case it was theft, not "reposting" whatever that is. If that is supposed to be the IndieWeb version of retweeting, I will steer clear of the IndieWeb. If you support it as being a valid IndieWeb tool, it makes me very worried about micro.blog. Copying something by someone else in whole and posting it somewhere else without their permission has been unacceptable since I first got on the Internet with a dial-up service many decades ago. I can't imagine why it would become acceptable now, regardless of what name you give it.
Perhaps you pointed to his reply so I would see that he took his copy down. But that does not repair the damage he caused. Sameer not posting to micro.blog any longer is the lasting damage of his actions and I believe he should be required to fix that before using the platform himself.
Or if you support what he did, perhaps the guidelines need to be re-written so we all understand what you believe is acceptable to be posted on the Internet.
@pratik Sameer was one of the earliest — and friendliest — people I met via Micro.blog. I hope he reconsiders, too, but I won’t blame him if he doesn’t. A preview card-style feature for link (micro-)blogging could have prevented this.
@Ron Our guidelines can't apply to all content on the internet. Micro.blog itself will never have reposts, for reasons I first blogged about over 3 years ago. What we can do is stay active in the IndieWeb community to help improve conventions around reposts so this doesn't happen again.
@simonwoods I agree that Micro.blog didn't play a role in this. As long as you have a publicly-available feed for your website, this can be done. We rely on other bloggers/users to respect the norms of sharing others' content. But unfortunately, we can't police this beyond asking the person to not do so in the future. I can't speak for Sameer but I understand his frustration. Mal's response to Sameer is encouraging and at least he has admitted that the manner of his sharing wasn't ideal @manton @ron
@bix I agree that this may be the reason Sameer left. It has happened before with him and I can understand. Each individual is within their rights to feel respected and not threatened in any public space they inhabit. I cannot tell him or anyone else how to perceive that threat. For M.b's sake and for the good of the community, I hope he reconsiders and returns soon. I hope he knows that there are many more people who support and understand him than those who do not. @davidixon
@pratik Agreed on all but Malcom's response. I felt his apology lacked any representation of ownership at all.
@bix Right but in this specific reply Manton was speaking within the context of what Ron said. Let's try to not confuse things by derailing individual threads into what we consider to be the important parts of the issue.
@simonwoods Hence I said encouraging. I feel an apology is necessary and a promise to fix the reposting template so as to respect the web's norms. A short excerpt if it's a longform post can be used alongside a link to the original post. That ought to suffice to pique the interest of Mal's readers whom he wants to share the content with. My motto in running a filter blog is to "drive the traffic away to the source". Anyway, that's a different topic and should have been identified as a issue to discuss instead of assuming what's right (his first response).
@pratik https://mblaney.xyz/2020-02-20-wowitsinterestingthatrepostingontwitter#381 seems sincere to me. I think it is just time to breath, a simple design flaw with no malintent. To even suggest the act of theft, or intentions of harm is off the mark. ...and btw all of @vasta content gets a CC-BY-NC-SA license. @mal can't steal something he is legally licensed to use....did he attribute yes, share under same license yes, make money, no....not stealing if openly licensed
@bix I think we mostly agree. A while back there was a white supremacist who joined and we deleted his account before anyone on Micro.blog noticed. That job is what we signed up for. Yesterday, I reached out to @mal and the IndieWeb community to make things better, which I also think was the appropriate response. I'm sad that it ended up like this.
@manton meh - why can I not click "Like" on this? I mean there is no option|button|whatever xD
@manton Oh, odd. From Timeline it's possible. From Conversation not. Guess I have to learn some more about this.
@jgmac1106 I can never guage the intent although Sameer did. But I did agree with him about the impact. Once the impact was known, Mal should fix that. Just because you can doesn't mean you should especially after being told that the creator of the content doesn't prefer it. Like I mentioned in my other replies, it's about norms and spirit of the web and not the law.
@bekopharm Sorry about that, the timeline and conversations on the web are not consistent enough. I keep forgetting to fix that but I'll prioritize it. Thanks!
read through his posts, Malcom immediatley offered to delete it. There was "no refusal to admitting wrong doing"
I think spirit of the web needs to be a bit more forgiving rather than jumping on someone who builds an Open Source CMS for the world. Especially for sharing content that that is marked as a repost in way that is both human and machine readable.....
My mentions of the CC-BY-SA-NC license on Sameer's work were more directed at claims of "stolen," "theft," and violation. None of those claims can be true if Malcom met all three conditions of the license.
@jgmac1106 This is not accurate. The initial post was defensive with a bit of snark about surprise at being labeled a content farmer. Sameer read and replied to this, and that prompted a more conciliatory post. But the damage was done and I doubt Sameer even saw the second reply. When someone is feeling wronged, it's really important to stop and try to understand why, rather than arguing that the reaction is unfounded. You may have knowledge of the context, but you can't assume others do.
I'd like to draw line under this discussion thread if we could. The one impacted was Sameer, and he is not here now. For the rest of us here at Micro.blog, let's take it as a lesson to be willing to give the benefit of the doubt when something is not clear or well-understood, and to listen carefully when someone has a grievance, even if we are tempted to explain it away.
@macgenie I haven't followed this particular tiff, but many thanks to you for trying to steer us away from the usual online hellhole.