It really bothered me how Marc Canter quotes other bloggers, until he quoted this piece today from Judith Meskill's social software weblog.
Why does it bother me?
It is difficult to tell what Marc Canter has written vs what he is quoting from someone else. There is no indentation and no quotes around paragraphs written by other people that he is quoting. This bothers me because 1) When he quotes people writing in the first person, I sometimes think it is him. 2) Although, he always adds [the source] in brackets, I still don't know what his words are and what other people's words are.
Why I am not so mad about it today?
If he hadn't taken what Judith Meskill had written verbatim, I wouldn't have gotten any traffic from him as a result of this post today.
What could he do to avoid this confusion?
Option 1. Indent
Here is an example indented quote.
Option 2. Quote
"Here is an example quoted quote."
Option 3: Preface the quoted words before quoting with where the words are coming from.
Judith Meskill at the social software weblog reports:
Option 4: Any combination of the three alternatives above or another alternative that allows the reader to know (from the beginning of the quote), that he/she is reading a quote.
Will I stop reading him?
No. He is a hub for social software news, info and insight. The confusion is worth the privelege. If you are reading this, Marc, keep up the good work. Consider my feedback, please. I am sure I am not the only one that gets confused sometimes.
And I am posting this in public, because Marc isn't the only one that does this. You know who you are.
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