Discussion: "Why are people copying tweets without mentioning the source?"

Example: Somebody mentions a blog post title and link (not authored by them) on Twitter:

@hrouda The Point You’re Missing About Google Wave http://ow.ly/sw8X

It gets repeated:

@laikas: The Point You’re Missing About Google Wave http://ow.ly/sw8X - via @hrouda

And again:

@EdBennett The Point You’re Missing About Google Wave - a positive non-hype view http://ow.ly/sw8X - via @hrouda @laikas

At what point do you stop adding @@@@@@@@user names if the original blog post was written by somebody else to begin with - not by the person(s) who posted the link on Twitter? And then, on top of it, there is ow.ly URL that hides the original URL of the blog post: http://ow.ly/sw8X

My solution: Re-post the original blog post and link, if you find them interesting and useful.

@DrVes "The Point You’re Missing About Google Wave" http://bit.ly/UV9zB - We'll wait and see... :)

@laikas was not too happy:

Twitter = social media isn't it? Then why are some people just copying tweets without mentioning the source? That is not social!

There are not set-in-stone guidelines how to use Twitter but here are some of my thoughts:

"Why are people copying tweets w/o mentioning source?" - Twitter has 140 character limit, the source is the link. Quoting "original" tweet is optional since it is not very original to begin with.

Who owns a tweet? In a limited 140-character space, how much credit can you provide if you list a headline and a link from another site?

Feel free to re-post all my linked tweets from other websites without any attribution - those are just links - this use is similar to Delicious for sharing links. Do you credit the person who bookmarked first an article on Delicious? How is Twitter different if you just quote a headline and link?

Giving credit to the tweet who found the link first is nice but not always possible when you work with 4,000 news items a day.

People use Twitter for different reasons. Twitter is my notebook with interesting links/ideas that happens to be in public.

However, I do have an issue with "partial" re-tweets that alter the meaning of the original tweet - this is a real problem.

From @laikas:

One cannot speak of ownership of tweets but it is a matter of courtesy 2 just try 2 mention the source on twitter.

Although there is a 140c limit I always try to adapt the tweet so that attribution fits in.

@Pudliszek: "@DrVes interesting discussion. Tweets are always 2 short 4 me, it's not always possible 2 include everything in 1 tweet." True, but twitter is also a social medium where you acknowledge each others contribution.

It does cost me a lot of time 2 adapt tweets. Yday some1 said 2 me: Thnx 4 RT, but It is hard 2 understand my own tweet :)

Citing only refers to tweets you see and seem original.

In this example, what is original is not the tweet but the blog post and link.

I hope this discussion makes sense to somebody and I'm pretty sure that Twitter will make the whole issue obsolete by introducing a "like/share" system similar to the one used by Google Reader and FriendFeed.

In summary, we should all try to be nice and respectful to each other - this is what makes Twitter social.

Related:
Do you delete your tweets?