Re-blogging Etiquette - Linking from Other Blogs / Tumblr

Hey there!

I’m trying to revive an old art website and recently thought of using Tumblr as a way of promoting it, because Tumblr’s unique audience seemed in line with who I wanted to invite to my site. Tumblr, as I’ve learnt, considers itself a ‘microblogging’ site.

So I tried it out, and after a little while, I ran into a couple challenges. First, commenting on Tumblr is tricky, so the traditional way we’re used to thinking of online discussions (commenter posts, OP replies, someone else chimes in) doesn’t happen. Instead, second, the primary way of interacting on Tumblr seems to be to ‘re-blog’ other people’s posts, adding your two-cents below.

So that’s fine within Tumblr, because that’s what the culture of the website is, but I found myself feeling constrained by its limitations and wanting to instead create a proper blog (Wordpress, etc.) so I could have real discussions.

So here’s my question. What are the ethics, considerations and etiquette, when it comes to ‘re-blogging’ things onto a ‘real’ blog? Certainly I intend to mostly write original content, but there are cool posts, cartoons and the like, from Tumblr and other sites that I’d love to show to my audience too.

From a legal standpoint, would that be considered fair use? Or would it be copyright infringement?

Then, apart from the legals, would it be considered proper form, or in bad taste, to do that type of thing?

1 Like

hmm, A little googling lead me to some further thoughts about this.

Obvious suggestion: Ask!

Second very, very good idea is to disable comments from re-blogged posts, instead directing the audience to comment on the original poster’s article. I love that idea, I find it very respectful, and I think I’ll employ it.

Actually, in the spirit of ‘re-blogging’ here’s what I came across over at dailypost.wordpress.com:

Don’t reblog without comment — add your own thoughts! If
others see their work appear on your blog without any mention of what
spoke to you about it, they’re likely to wonder why you’ve reposted what
they’ve written at all. Adding your own thoughts makes a reblog a
meaningful contribution to a cross-blog conversation.

Pay attention to sidebar warnings. Some bloggers
don’t want their content reblogged and say as much in their sidebars.
Others have specific requests on their front pages as to how and when
they like their content to be shared. If you want to reblog another
blogger’s post, it takes only a second to check their site for such
information.

Pay attention to context. Is the post you want to
share about a very sensitive or personal topic? Does the blog itself
appear to be mostly personal in nature (for example, does it have share
buttons and/or comments turned off)? If so, it might be a good idea to
check with the blogger before you share their post.

Check that your reblog appears correctly. The
WordPress.com reblogging feature is designed to display an excerpt of
the original post and clear attribution with a link back to the source.
Double-check all your reblogs to make sure that the link back to the
source is obvious, and that the entire original post does not appear
(this can occasionally happen if the post is very short).

If in doubt, ask. While it’s not necessary to get
permission each time you reblog someone’s work, it never hurts to do so.
This way, you can be 100% certain you’re not stepping on anyone’s
feelings.

Respect the wishes of other bloggers. Should
someone contact you and ask you to remove their content from your site,
take it down promptly and confirm with them that you’ve done so.

And in case anyone else is interested, here’s another one I just found specifically about good Tumblr etiquette (when it comes to re-blogging on there).

Oh! And here’s another brilliant suggestion from over at americantransman.com:

  1. Please leave a comment to let readers (and me) know that a certain
    post will be reblogged and where it will appear. I am interested in
    checking out other blogs and readers of my original post might be
    curious about those other blogs as well.

A one man thread! Cool.

When it comes to this kind of question I always think about whether I’d care if someone did it to me. And I wouldn’t if it was properly attributed. But I do agree that asking certainly couldn’t hurt and will possibly serve to avert future issues.

1 Like

Yeah, we’re posting up a storm over here!

Way to ruin the party @HAWK

2 Likes

A lot of people (again as you said depending hugely on the platform and personal preferences) would much rather you act essentially as a curator - so instead of reblogging, you’d post a your blog post that would read:
“Head over to http://example.com/examplearticle and read this cool article on Example Articles that they have going on. Good discussion happening, lots of ideas”

The reason for this is traffic. A lot of people would read your repost, then not bother to go to the OP site. The OP site now loses out on:

  • Analytics / Traffic data
  • Money from advertising, if they advertise, or from traffic/impressions/etc
  • Potential for persons to also browse other content, buy products, subscribe to their blog/channel/rss/whatever, etc

You may have attributed the author and even encouraged discussion to go to their site when your reblog the content, but almost guaranteed some of your readership won’t go if they can just read/watch/view it on your page while they’re there.

Food for thought.

1 Like

Thanks for that, it makes sense.

It’s a bit like when Google started pulling out excerpts of the top website hits; So fewer persons started going into the original websites for the content.

Interesting idea.

It would add some incentive (whether it’s curiousity or encouragement) for viewers to follow the link.

Another thought, though - your first self-response “Ask!” is perhaps the best thing to take away from all of this. Will some content authors feel as I’ve explained? Definitely. Will some feel pretty care-free about it? Definitely. Will some merely want an attribution? Definitely.

If you ask, and they’re ok with anything, then you can do whatever suits you! And if they have stipulations, then you can follow them and have a clear conscience while still sharing cool stuff.

So good point!

Re-blogging is not a good idea. Because there is a duplicate content issue as well as the authorship issue too. If you feel that the specific content can add value to your blog/topic then it’s good idea to share a link on your website for the original source. It will give content credit to the author of the blog as well as backlink to the original source.

This topic was automatically closed 91 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.