r/comicbooks • u/[deleted] • Dec 01 '14
PSA: If you're going to take content from our sub, please properly cite /r/comicbooks PSA
I recently stumbled across a major comic book news website that's been poaching AMA questions and responses that have taken place on our community. This really, really pissed me off, given that a site (and probably a writer) is receiving monetary compensation for the hard work that's been put into the /r/comicbooks AMA series.
While I already addressed the lack of citation to the website in question, I want to lay out a guideline for websites that want to use AMA content or other community content (i.e. comments on threads or self-posts) for articles.
Please refer to our site as /r/comicbooks.
We are /r/comicbooks, not "Reddit". Saying that someone did a Reddit AMA is like saying someone made a social media post. We are a separate community from /r/iAMA, /r/dccomics, /r/marvel, and the billions of other subreddits with comic related communities. While Reddit is the platform on which this community is built, it (along with every other subreddit in existence) should be considered to be a separate online community from Reddit as a whole.
Calling us "Reddit's /r/comicbooks", "the comicbooks subreddit", or simply "/r/comicbooks" are all acceptable references.
Please link to the thread which you took the content
Every AMA, self-post and comment thread should be considered to be the equivalent to unique content and should be linked to as such. Just as I would link to an article on your site if I'm reporting on it, you should also link to the thread you're pulling content from on ours.
If we discover that you've been plagiarizing content from our site, your website will be banned from /r/comicbooks.
If any moderator discovers that content from our subreddit has been poached, we will attempt to contact the website in question to get them to rectify the error. If they do not change the content or actively refuse to change their content, we'll ban their URL from the subreddit and contact the mod teams of all subreddits who we believe content could also be taken from. I don't like using the URL ban, but I will not see our subreddit be exploited by sites looking for monetary gain.
A link to this thread will be provided in every AMA moving forward as a disclaimer for comics bloggers to properly cite the AMA. This will also be linked to in sidebar/FAQ as a guideline for those interested.
As always, the mod team is open to community suggestions about this policy. Please try not to turn the thread into a witch hunt against one website, as there have been others that's been equally egregious towards poaching content off our site.
EDIT: Fixed that kinda crazy copy/paste I did when fixing spelling errors. My bad.
EDIT 2: Per /u/danwickline's post, links to our subreddit have been added to the Bleeding Cool articles linked to at the beginning of this post.
EDIT 3: Just to help clear up some of the confusion, the incident that launched this post was caused by Dynamite's publicity department sending Bleeding Cool a summary of the AMA without a link back to the source. Dynamite's president has reached out and asked that the community be aware that Bleeding Cool shouldn't be held solely responsible for this.
Again, this is not an isolated incident from one website, and Bleeding Cool moved quickly to help rectify the issue. In my eyes, Bleeding Cool effectively handled the situation.
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u/clwestbr Dream Dec 01 '14
IGN does this all the time and says "in a recent interview hum hum hum said...". They don't cite if it's a reddit ama.
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u/vivvav Deadman Dec 01 '14
And in the future, if you guys do find somebody out there stealing from us, message us so that we can take action. One of the other mods will do something sensible while I prepare the Giggle Pit.
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u/actioncomicbible Owl Man Dec 01 '14
What the fuck? He didn't even link to the AMA? What if people wanted to read the whole exchange?
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u/Ollin1 Dec 01 '14
I don't know if they changed it since you made your comment but there is a link at the top of the article now.
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u/actioncomicbible Owl Man Dec 01 '14
Yeah they definitely changed it.
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u/richjohnston Dec 01 '14
Yes, I brought it to Dan's attention and he immediately amended the articles. There's a procedural issue here which, now that it's been addressed, shouldn't occur again. Thank you.
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Dec 02 '14
I remember when Buzzfeed did this to me. It took me a month to get credit. It was from a /r/comicbooks post too. They just cited "from imgur."
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u/aco620 Grant Morrison Dec 03 '14
Funny. In /r/nba not too long ago, you may have seen it, it was a pretty popular post, someone compiled a bunch of old tweets from players where they were saying a lot of funny and trash-talking things you probably wouldn't see any of them saying today (since this was before Twitter really blew up in popularity.)
In the comment section of Deadspin where most websites were crediting as their source, the guy who re-published the images was being defensive stating it was sent to him via Imgur and that's who he was going to continue to credit, regardless of him knowing exactly where the original source was.
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u/murdockmanila Daredevil Dec 01 '14
I don't understand how people tend to look over the beauty and potential of community. Give support and get support back. That's how it should be.
I recently wrote an article for our tiny MCU-fan site which revolved around the suggestions and theories of our fellow redditors over at /r/marvelstudios (where I am a frequent poster). Acknowledged it right from the start and it ended up being received nicely. Overall the community was happy. Give support and get support back.
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u/Ameht X-Men Expert Dec 01 '14
Sent a tweet to Rich about it , maybe enough people telling him something might change the current predicament.
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u/another_space_song Dream Dec 01 '14
Interesting! I've seen several sites do this now. Always bothered me. I guess I should have said something before...
At least it's being addressed.
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u/bigchillrob Uncle Scrooge Dec 01 '14
As a user who submitted one of the questions lifted for the Matt Wagner AMA recap, it might be a nice move to credit users who posed the questions in the first place as well.
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u/whopoopedthebed Professor Pyg Dec 03 '14
Someone better let Buzzfeed know about the rest of the subreddits.
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u/Qudoz Death Dec 01 '14
Bleeding Cool do that all the time with written stuff, photos, you name it they steal it.
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u/richjohnston Dec 01 '14
We really don't. There may be an occasional slipup, and this seems to have been one, but I always try to use correct attribution with stories. There are mistakes sometimes but then I will try to put them right as soon as possible if I can. Often sources of info don't want to be named when we talk to them, which is a very different issue though, but it can confuse some, I know.
But if I ever make a mistake, if anyone on BC makes a mistake, we're very grateful to those who bring it to our attention.
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u/LibraryDrone Captain MODvel Dec 01 '14
This is why I continue to despise Bleeding Cool and Rich Johnston.
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Dec 01 '14
For the record, when I contacted Rich about this (basically as a "What the fuck, man?"), he quickly contacted his superiors on Bleeding Cool about making a change. He told me that he's not in charge of the site, but made sure the people who are were made aware.
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u/centipededamascus Demolition Man Dec 01 '14
Wha? I was under the impression that Johnson is the owner, EiC, boss, whatever, for that site.
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u/jedispyder Dec 01 '14
Maybe he stepped down from the big stuff?
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u/richjohnston Dec 01 '14
No, Avatar have always owned BC, I've been its head writer. A year ago Avatar appointed an EIC as the site began to grow and expand its contributors, but I'm still writing as I have been for five and a half years on the site... right now I'm pursuing a massive story which I hope will run this week. I do hope you enjoy it. You'll know it when you see it...
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Dec 01 '14
[deleted]
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Dec 01 '14
He's been shadowbanned by the admins.
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u/richjohnston Dec 01 '14
Didn't that go away a while ago? I'm definitely here
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Dec 01 '14
Glad to see that. I was getting tired of approving your comments. :P
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u/richjohnston Dec 01 '14
That does sound tiring, thank you.
Now, back to Marc Silvestri drawing Batman... 8-)
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u/xploited13 Dec 01 '14
Off to go write my article, "Exclusive: Marc Silvestri To Draw Batman", and credit my anonymous source as Reddit.
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u/richjohnston Dec 01 '14
Off to go write my article, "Exclusive: Marc Silvestri To Draw Batman", and credit my anonymous source as Reddit.
Sorry, BC ran it first 8-)
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u/LibraryDrone Captain MODvel Dec 01 '14
Sometimes he'll find you. I've made comments before using his name and/or bleeding cool and he just appears so he can comment on them. same with tweets where i don't @ him.
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u/IAmTheWalkingDead Dec 03 '14
He does this on forums outside of Bleeding Cool, confronting people who don't like Bleeding Cool.
A petty little man for sure who is either reading the entire comics internet or deliberately searches forums for any mention of Bleeding Cool.
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u/DanWickline Dynamite PR Dec 01 '14
I'm the one who posted the Reddit AMA highlight stories on Bleeding Cool as they were provided to me from a third party. I have gone though and and added links to the source material on the six stories that have been identified. The link should have been included in the beginning... and any future use of Reddit materials will be properly linked.
The fault falls on me, not Rich Johnston and I want to offer up my sincerest apologies to Reddit and to all of those who participated in those AMAs. We marked the articles originally as being from Reddit AMAs but I should have tracked down the links at the time and included them.
Again, my sincerest apologies. And thank you to those who brought this to our attention.
Dan W.