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Comment by Femur | Hacker News Reader

How often do you cross-post the exact same comment between HN and reddit?

http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/aouv5/new_appro...

Edit: I may have jumped to conclusions; the individual on reddit may have very well stolen your comment in which case my accusation is invalid.

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If it's the same article, why shouldn't it be the same comment?

What's so wrong with saying the same thing in two different conversations?

Nothing, as long as it's the same person saying it.

That is not my reddit id and even if it was what is wrong with doing that ?

I didn't mean to imply that anything was wrong with it, I was just going to see if you often cross-posted.

Almost everyone who responded to your comment thought you implied it was wrong :) I thought so because you used the word "accusation"

I read it like that initially as well, then I figured it might be the reverse.

Andreyf is active here too, but afaik not under that uid.

This is his:

http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=andreyf

So you may be right after all.

the individual on reddit may have very well stolen your comment

I did, thought of it more as a social experiment than theft, though. Apologies to boundlessdreamz, if he cares...

That's pretty low.

Huh? To cross-post a comment from news.YC to reddit? Why?

If it was your own comment that would be fine, if it is someone else's then I'm afraid that it is beyond me to explain to you why it is wrong if you do not understand that by yourself.

Right, if it was anything more than a comment on a message board, I agree, but just as borrowing a piece of paper or pencil during class without returning it is technically "theft", this is similarly justified.

You really don't get it do you?

How do I go about explaining this in a way that the coin will drop...

Borrowing a pencil or a piece of (blank) paper during class concerns the use of raw materials.

There is no personal investment in to that piece of paper or pencil, they are the equal of any other piece of paper or pencil, which is why you can 'return' a piece of paper, you simply take another one that looks sufficiently like the original and you return it.

To take someone else's words with attribution is one thing, even when done without permission.

To take someone else's words and to pass them off as your own is the essence of plagiarism. You basically pretended to have come up with those words on your own.

That's 'not done', not because you can't but simply because if everybody would be doing that we'd be having a cut and paste discussion instead of a real one.

If you use a link to underscore a point you make (or even a cut-and-paste quote with a source) that's perfectly fine, but to simply copy someones words and make them your own is well over the line.

'Just a comment on a message board' has nothing to do with it, that's saying that it is ok to steal dollar bills but not ok to steal 100's.

Accepting (and using) your confounding between copyright violation, plagiarism, and theft, most moral and legal system make exception to very minor infringements. The oldest I know of is the Babylonian Talmud, which grants exception to "injury less than a perutah in value" [1]. I challenge you to show any value in this "theft".

that's saying that it is ok to steal dollar bills but not ok to steal 100's

Precisely! That's what I meant by "borrow a pencil" without returning it: I'm saying it's OK to steal a piece of paper (or copy a comment), but not a dollar (or copy his blog post), and not a 100 (or copy a chapter from his book), especially if it serves another purpose (comparing replies to a popular comment in two communities).

1. http://www.come-and-hear.com/sanhedrin/sanhedrin_57.html

I give up.

Someone else want to give it a shot?

Someone else want to give it a shot?

Sure. Assuming we have the same innate moral sense as the authors of the Talmud, you value the damages of my copyright infringement as greater or equal than a perutah in value. I do not.

As a matter of fact, the reason I cross-posted is that I don't think the comment in question deserved the top spot, and would frankly be ashamed if such writing/logic were ever seriously attributed to me.

Right... do you know what 'adding insult to injury' means ?

Wow dude.. You are one of a kind.

Here's a good example:

http://waxy.org/2009/04/all_things_digital_and_transparency_...

The short of it being that identity is paramount online. Stealing content can be a copyright issue, but stepping into someone else's voice and holding someone else's creative content as your own is simply evil. With proper, comprehensive attribution there's some flex to go around, but even then it's generally something done with consent and grace.

Cross-posting someone else's comment might just be borrowing their pencil for an argument, but since it's kind of an amazing pencil and now you're showing it off to your friends like it's your own, you should expect cold stares when you give it back.

Again, it depends on the value you attribute to a news.YC comment, and a reddit "identity". I agree with and understand the immorality of plagiarism, I'm just saying it only applies to work one puts more than a couple of minutes of effort into.

Actually, I think it's kind of interesting. Granted, it was impolite to crosspost the comment from boundless without asking first, but this could be an interesting thought process. I'm kind of wondering what conclusions andreyf was trying to draw.

Edit: After a little thought, I think you may be blowing this up a little bit. He did delete the comment when boundless objected and it wasn't exactly a work of art or anything.

9 Hours later, after parting with this gem:

> "As a matter of fact, the reason I cross-posted is that I don't think the comment in question deserved the top spot, and would frankly be ashamed if such writing/logic were ever seriously attributed to me."

It's a new low for HN from what I've seen to date.

a new low for HN from what I've seen to date

Agreed. Except you're the one who keeps insisting on dragging out for me to explain myself over something boundlessdreamz and I settled in two comments 10 hours ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1049476

wondering what conclusions andreyf was trying to draw

I was wondering who would pick up first on the unyielding Google-love and the blatantly imagined Chinese-espionage speculation, HN or reddit. reddit won :( http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/aouv5/new_appro...

I do care about it a bit because that comment contains personal opinion/commentary. If you had copied only the "data/facts" there would have been no problem.

OK, I'll delete it. Sorry.

Someone mod poor Femur up, he was right all along.

Thanks, but I don't worry about karma. The discussion that followed because of my post was reward enough. :)

Good enough, but a -4 just for getting the timing wrong by a couple of minutes was hardly your mistake.

You had it backwards, but if you hadn't spotted that I highly doubt that this would have come out.

And I also highly doubt the whole 'social experiment' excuse, that's just way too glib for me.

I would like to see this be the top thread under the parent comment, however.

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