Adapting vs. Butchering

Much has been discussed about copyright issues with respect to posting recipes, but I have a question that comes at it from a slightly different angle that I've not seen addressed here.

Quite a few of the recipes on my blog are adapted from books or other sources. I do cite the original source, and paraphrase the instructions in my own words. Ingredient substitutions are generally what I consider to be minor (e.g., instant yeast instead of fresh). Sometimes I explicitly state what departures I have made from the original, but more often than not I don't, as I feel this would be cumbersome to read and detract from the post.

It has occurred to me that the creator of the original might view my "adaptation" as a thorough butchering of the recipe, and be offended to have his or her name associated with it. Since I believe the paraphrasing puts me on solid ground as far as copyright infringement goes, maybe I should avoid crediting the original sources altogether. But this just feels wrong.

Note that this is a purely hypothetical concern, because I'm sure none of these people pays any attention whatsoever to what I put on my blog. Even so, I'd be curious to hear thoughts. Do I need to find a different reason to lie awake at night?


This Post was written by Susan from Wild Yeast.

I have been hacked and not sure what to do now

As if working full time, commuting, and having 3 kids were not hard enough on the whole blogging habit, I have been hacked now.

These pathetic fools have hacked my blog - http://nikas-culinaria.com and my main reaction is .. how can I fix this in the 15 minutes I really do not have before I rush off to work.

*sighs*

I need a wordpress fiend who can give me some strategies for diagnosing what they mod'd

I know a lot about wordpress but I do not want to nuke this theme and install, I reaaaalllly do not. All I have right now is FTP access.

This Post was written by Nika from Nikas Culinaria

Google Alert Service

I wanted to highlight something I learned from the comments of a recent post about stats in case any of you didn't catch the great tip from SusanV. She suggested signing up for "Google Alerts". So I did. I created a google alert, putting my own blog's url in the Search terms box. Now, whenever someone links to my blog I get an email to let me know. Much less bother than checking on technorati. Thought it might interest a few others, so sharing the info.


This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

Sockpuppets in Comments

I've noticed a few instances lately in the comments section on my blog where someone recommends a webstore or product. While that comment completely on it's own doesn't raise any flags, sometimes I stumble on a nearly identical comment on someone else's blog.

Basically, there are businesses out there that look to build "buzz" or at least name recognition by pretending to be a reader of your blog and participate in discussions. They don't announce their affiliation and are referred to as Sockpuppets. (A famous instance of Sockpuppeting include John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods using the alias "Rahodeb" in forums to talk about Whole Foods and pump the company and in many cases defend Mackey against criticisms.)

Sometimes these Sockpuppets are being operated by larger companies in an organized effort, but usually they're just awkward companies with a poor understanding of ethics and how things work with blogs, forums and the internet.

How to spot a sockpuppet:

• Are they commenting in a relevant way about the post? Or does it seem like a canned statement that could apply to anyone's post?
  
• How did they get to your blog? Are they commenting on a new post? (Some sockpuppets chose fresh content, others will be using a search that will give them posts that are a couple of days/weeks/years old.)
  
• If they've specified a location in their post, does it match their IP address?
• Does their email address match their "name"
• Does their email address include the domain name of the company they're promoting?
• Are they leaving the same or similar comment on other blogs?
• Do they return to your blog over and over again?
• Are you able to challenge them and any statements or are they long gone?
  
• Do they use a real email address or input fake info?
• Do you get comments from the same IP address with similar content but with different "names" associated with them? Often the second will "agree" with the first.
  
• Try inputting their username and the name of the product/service they're mentioning and see if anything comes up.
  

There's no precise way to say for sure, but when in doubt, I say challenge these interlopers who want to destroy our communications. It's your website, so it's up to you if you want to turn it into a platform for this new form of marketing spam, but I think we all have a responsiblity as hosts of these sites to do at least a cursory job at keeping these people in check.

So, if no one minds, if I notice some of these folks lurking around on my blog and yours, I might send you a note. (I have a short list of them right now, I don't want to name any names here.)

This Post was written by Cybele from Candy Blog

Website Designer?

Replace this line of text with the main body of your post


This Post was written by MYNAME from BLOGNAME

Feed Woes

I was having an email conversation with the lovely Alanna this morning (you'll be glad to know she reminded me to correct a link on the side bar and re-add the calendar, and at the same time I also re-added the FAQ links as suggested a couple of weeks ago by Elise, which is all the house keeping for today)

Anyway, back to the FEED issue. Alanna made some comment about my feed being title only these days. And I was surprised. I am a big proponent of full feeds myself. She sent me a screen grab of my blog in her Bloglines and sure enough they were title only = not what I intended at all! In blogger my settings are all set to FULL. I went to feedburner and it was FULL there too. In google reader it is also FULL. Does anyone have any idea why my blog might not be showing up full in Bloglines? Do you read my blog in a feed reader - if so please let me know what it looks like to you and which reader you use. Thank you.

And whilst we are on the subject, please can someone explain this setting in blogger to me:

Post Feed Redirect URL
If you have burned your post feed with FeedBurner, or used another service to process your feed, enter the full feed URL here. Blogger will redirect all post feed traffic to this address.

thanks for all/any help

This Post was written by sam from Becks & Posh

Suggestions for Subscribe to Posts by Email Tool?

I'd like to offer my readers a subscribe to posts by email option. Right now, I'm using something that requires me to send out manual weekly email updates which is obviously unsustainable in addition to being less than ideal since it creates so much lag time between when I post and when people see the posts.

Can anyone give me advice on the best email feed tool to use for my blog?

Are there any issues I should know about if I use Feedburner or Feedblitz? and what are the differences between the two? Are there other options I should be considering?

Thank you so much in advance!!!

This Post was written by Eve from the Garden of Eating.

Scraper Alert - Daring Bakers & More - Watch out!

As well as me lots of Daring bakers and others seem to be affected by this scraper. I have already reported it to Google Adsense, if you are affected I suggest you do the same too.

This link is to the technorati listing, I don't want to give them the satisfaction of a direct link.


This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

What's the Story with FoodBuzz?

Hi all,

just wondering if anyone has any info about FoodBuzz (http://www.foodbuzz.com/)?


They approached me a month or two ago about becoming a "featured publisher" and I was not quite sure what to make of them.


I haven't moved ahead with them because a) I don't want to run ads on my blog and b) I was too busy to really do my homework on what their non-advertising option would require of me and would do for me.


Any info would be appreciated.


Thanks!

This Post was written by Eve from the Garden of Eating.

Food Blog Polls

Hi all. This is my first post and I am happy to be a part of this group. My blog is: http://tablebread.blogspot.com.

My question is; Why is that I have 60 - 100 unique visitors daily but when I do a poll I only get maybe 35-40 votes. Shouldn't I be seeing like 700 votes?

Does anyone experience this as well? Any ideas why this is happening? What are some ideas about how I could solve this?

This post was written by TableBread of http://tablebread.blogspot.com

Thanks!

New Food Scraper

*sighs*

So like two days after I add the feed scraper plugin I get a new scraper! Lots of others being scraped too, check it out.

choicecooking HYPHEN recipes DOT com


This Post was written by Nika from Nika's Culinaria

Please Clean Out Your Drafts -- Never Mind

Sam writes in the comments that this is a blogger bug and not to bother. I would delete the entire post, but since there are comments on it, I'll keep it here.

So re the below: No worries. Don't sweat it. Never mind.

A housekeeping note: I was just in the post editor and noticed almost every recent post has many multiple copies of previous autosaved drafts residing there. When you get a chance, it might be good to clean out these drafts. Since the post editor only shows so many posts at a time that means someone looking for something needs to scroll past many, many versions of the same thing, and older posts will not be displayed.

I know it's not a big deal, but I thought I would mention it.

Mysterious Red Background

Hey everyone,

I'm having a background issue on my blog and I can't get to the bottom of it. If you take a peek, it's all red. It's supposed to only be red on the sides and white (and readable) in the middle. I didn't tweak anything in the html it just all the sudden showed up like this earlier today. Not sure if anyone can pinpoint the reason but if you could help steer me in the right direction I'd really appreciate it.

Sorry for the onslaught of trouble-shooting posts lately.

Mona

This Post was written by Mona from Mona's Apple.

Food Blog S'cool Template

I decided to give FBS an official new-style blogger template.
A few good things have come out of this:
1) The list of members has replaced the member blog links. This means I don't have to update links by hand and that the list will always be current and actually only include people who did actual sign up (the previous links included people who asked to be signed up but never actually got around to completing the sign up process which was difficult for me to track).
2) I can add blogger widgets like the poll I am currently testing out.
3) Adding labels should work properly now - so please add relevant labels whenever you post.
4) The Google Search is working properly now it would seem - so no need for me to archive past posts into a library.

On the downside:
1) I can't get the recent comments widget to work. I'll keep trying.

Please let me know if you have any thoughts/opinions/comments/etc regarding these changes, bearing in mind FBS is something I would prefer mainly looks after itself rather than needs a great deal of babysitting from me.


This Post was written by Sam from Becks and Posh

Food Blog Survey [US only]

Any US Food Bloggers and their US readers can help out Leena of Leena Eats by participating in her survey designed to explore how U.S. consumers use U.S. based food blogs and U.S. print food journalism. The results of this scientific survey will not only help Leena complete her dissertation for her Masters in Gastronomy, it will also provide results which I think our community might be interested in.

Please consider sharing the survey with your own food blog readers too.

The survey can be found here and only takes a few minutes of your time.

THANK YOU.


This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

How to Fight Against Content Scrapers

Here is a great post from ProBlogger about How to Fight Content Scrapers. Much of this information has previously appeared on Food Blog S'Cool, but this post gathers it together into one place. Hope it is useful.

This Post was written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen

Wordpress Plugin

Hi all!

You know how some blogs have those links at the bottom of each post that let you save to all the social networking sites (del.ic.ious, facebook, stumble upon, i'm sure there are others I don't even know about)? Is there a Wordpress plugin that lets you add those links to the bottom of every post?

The closest thing I found is a (quite good) WP plugin called ShareThis, but it doesn't work quite the same way -- it opens up a box that then lets you send the post through email/facebook/all that other stuff). I'd rather have a few one-step links.

Thanks in advance for any help!



This Post was written by Katy from Sugarlaws.

Drop-Down Menu

Happy New Year, everyone!

I apologize for sounding like a broken record, but I've read the previous posts on the drop-down menu topic and I still can't figure it out.

The menu shows up looking all great and fancy, but when you click on a link within the drop-down menu, you are not redirected to the link.

Could someone possibly tell me what html I need to add and where to add it within my template so the drop-down menu works properly?

Thank you so much ahead of time for your assistance.

M

This Post was written by Mona from Mona's Apple.

Stats

Technorati isn't working at the moment ... can anyone recommend any other blog ranking service?

Joanna


This Post was written by Joanna from Joanna's Food

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(Feeds) Bloglines Feeds Question

I have a question for all you web pros.

When I click on the Bloglines 'subscribe' link, 5 different feeds come up as options to add to my bloglines. There is also a random feed for an old post from August. What is up with that?? (see picture)


I'd like to narrow this down to just one feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/lxqk)

Does anyone know how to do this?? I'm totally confused. :S


This Post was written by Ali from Divine Domesticity