Gas Prices Give Me The ‘Blogs'

By Cal Bryant - December 1, 2005 - Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald

For those who know me the best, they’ll be the first to tell you I’m normally just a happy, go-lucky guy.

With that in mind, please forgive me this week as I need to blow off some steam.

/snip/

..... I have a bone to pick with Dean Stephens, author of the Bertie [County] Patriot, an online blog.

I met Dean a while back at a Bertie County function that we were respectively covering an event for our different forms of media. He’s a heck of a nice guy, one that moved home to Colerain to take care of his elderly mother.

Dean has a nice online journal. His recent piece on the Innsbrook development in Bertie County was especially pleasing, particularly the photographs.

While it didn’t drive me past the point of being stark-raving mad, it did upset me a bit when I read his points of interest to an article, with my byline, published last week in the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald.

Readers, please note, this is where my comments start.

Thanks for being kind in your criticism Cal. The point you made is valid in regards to the newness of the Internet for many people in our area. As a result, some of the expectations for following what is happening on a blog are often a little confusing at first.

I have thought before about doing an article introducing people to the concept of blogs, and the standard way in which "hyperlinking" is used in blogs. This primer has to start with the concept of linking to other articles, the heart of 'blogging'. Let's start with some of the basics here, as a part of my apology to Cal for people mistaking my opinions for his.

When Cal writes an article and it is posted on the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald, it is legal for anyone to "link" to that article for the purpose of commenting on it. In my blog the hyperlink that allows you to go read the entire article on the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald web site is the TITLE of my posting. If you move your mouse over the title, it will turn light green and the pointer will become a little hand, indicating that if you click your mouse it will go to the other web site. This is common, and if you click on the title above, Gas Prices Give Me The ‘Blogs' you can read all of Cal's article in which he takes me to task.

To use his material, I have to include the title of the article I am linking to, the author, the date of the original article, and the original publisher of the copyrighted material. Because there are limits to how much of a linked article can be included and how it is displayed under what is called the fair use exception (even on a blog such as mine which is non-commercial) it is required that I clearly indicate the copyrighted portion of his article that I am quoting. Publishers created a standard way of doing this even before the World Wide Web existed.

A technical way of doing that is implemented in the HTML programming language with a code known as [blockquote]. That was done because this process is so common on the World Wide Web. When you use the [blockquote] code, the copyrighted material is automatically set off by a dashed line above it, a dashed line below it, the text is indented, and a lighter font color is used.

You will see this so often, that it becomes quite natural to differentiate quoted material from new material on any site you are reading. However if you are not aware of this, it is obviously possible to not notice the difference when someone else's comments start.

Sorry someone's newness to the Internet caused you a problem Cal. I will try to make it clearer where my comments start when I quote you in the future. You are a great writer and I know I will be quoting you again. I don't want to cause you problems or create misunderstandings.

Thanks again for being kind.