I’d prefer posters copy and paste rather than link, but there’s problems with doing that.
If someone does copy-and-paste their own writing from another site, it’s probably a good idea to note that it’s been copied from elsewhere and that it is one’s own. Otherwise, there might be an accusation of a copyright violation.
And, by posting here, it gives some rights to what was posted to the owners of this board. Some posters might not be comfortable with that.
I think best practice is to write a summary here of what was written elsewhere, while linking to the original. No different than referring to another person’s writing on another site.
My impression is that, under the rules as they currently exist, “linking to our own tweets or other social media” is not prohibited unless it involves doing something else against the rules, like spamming or linking to NSFW material. But neither is it explicitly permitted—it’s just not really mentioned at all. So the first question is, is my impression correct?
Then the second question is, should the rules be changed, either to explicitly prohibit this or to explicitly permit it? At this point, I don’t think either of those is necessary, though it could conceivably become necessary at some point.
And the third question is, regardless of the rules or lack thereof, is it a good idea for people to actually do this?
Yup. I thought the rule (or etiquette, if not a formal rule) was that at least a brief synopsis should accompany any link, so that conversation can flow coherently without any obligation to follow the link. Many links, especially on social media, just won’t work after a period of time, so if we don’t do this, it will be impossible to make sense of old threads.
The reason I don’t favor Twitlinks is not because of board performance or whatever. It’s because the Twitlinker is usually lazy and provides no context. The link will go to a long list of crap that may or may not be germane to the OP, and I don’t want to flounder in Twit limbo looking for the salient point. Plus, I’m normally averse to click bait, because I’m usually directed to some lameassed shit that doesn’t measure up to its headline. I refuse to justify the link by increasing the hit count. At least at this board, I’m secure in the knowledge that somebody expended some kind of effort into keeping their thoughts contained in one single post. I’m not impressed by how much I’m redirected over the internets.
It’s amazing how ahead of the curve they were in the 90’s and then it just…stopped. The aversion to things like simple avatars and allowing the message board to be found with search engines was astounding.
And that is exactly the logic that I say doesn’t work. inking something is how you get people discuss it here. If you don’t link it, then it can’t be discussed here. It would have to be discussed there.
If linking offsite led to fewer posts, then Reddit would be dead. Yet it is a site that has replaced nearly all other forums. Being able to link your content encourages people to share their stuff, and people like to share.
It’s also never been a significant problem before, despite not being against the rules before. Assuming it will be a problem in the future when you have no evidence seems, well, irrational to me. You don’t make rules about something that isn’t a problem.
I also note that, since pictures were brought up in the OP, there is no way to post one’s images on this board. So you have just forbidden discussing any image a poster has made.
To make explicit what I normally leave implicit: I invite you to reply and tell me why I’m wrong. Because, right now, it seems the logic is all backwards and would actually reduce the amount of participation here, rather than increase it.
The previous rule seems better–we’ll allow it, but we reserve the right to ask you to stop if it becomes too much. Or, if you want to look at Reddit, you have the “only 10% of links can be to your own content,” which seems to be working well enough for them.
First, I appreciate “Twitlinks.” I mean, it’s stupid and unoriginal, but it does a great job of capturing the vibe of retirement community members staring balefully at the teens across the street.
I don’t know what “Twit limbo” is, but if anyone links to something incoherent (On twitter or anywhere else), you can call them out on it and request clarification, just like you do when someone posts something long and incoherent directly on this board.
I ain’t in no retirement community and I agree that Twitter links almost universally suck. Half the time it’s just a link to something else in the tweet, the rest of the time it’s a context free one sentence story. It’s only occasionally good when you want that sentence from the horse’s mouth. The rest of the time, it’s a lame lazy cite.
Sure it can, if instead of linking it, you just post it here, so we can see what you have to say without clicking a link! Remember, we’re talking about linking to your own posts elsewhere.
I get the impression that different people in this thread are imagining or thinking about different things, and thus arguing at cross purposes with one another.
Here are the OP’s examples:
And what people are saying is: Instead of this, why not just post that rant here? That way people don’t have to click a link to see it, and deal with a different interface that they may or may not be familiar with.
(That said, I don’t see anything wrong with posting the link, as long as you clearly identify what/where it links to and you accept that not everyone’s going to click it.)
People have always posted links to photos elsewhere and linked to them here. It’s how we “share” images here, and there’s plenty of precedent. The only problem is if you link to a site that doesn’t work for all Dopers (you have to log in or sign up or use a specific app or something like that to see the images).
That’s fine. You don’t have to like them. The question is whether they should be forbidden. If they’re not forbidden, I suspect people posting to their own account’s will be very rare. People already post to other people’s twitter accounts, if only, like you said, to show that some famous person actually said the thing the poster says they said.
I can’t imagine why anyone would link to their own account, I just don’t see why they should be forbidden from doing so.
And again, this board does not host images, so anyone who wants to link to a picture has to link offsite anyway. People seem to like cat pics. Why not let people link to an Instagram picture of their new kitty? If you don’t want to see the cat, you don’t have to click.
SlackInc used to link to his own twitter all the time. It often felt like he was trying to gain followers to me.
I don’t think it should be forbidden but I am pretty sick of:
Doper: They just shut down the investigation! <link>
–> content at link “They shut down the investigation! <link to BBC>”, by some guy I never heard of.
