When I was publicly requesting naijalive.net to remove my blog from their “aggregator”, little did I know that Akin Akintayo had already blogged his critique of the very same service on 3rd July 2007.
Amateurs aping professionals
Thinking aloud – I received an email/blog comment yesterday from someone who had decided to exploit an opportunity – the absence of the Nigerian Bloggers Aggregator (NBA).
He goes on to criticize the folks running NBA about what he considers “problems with the professionalism of the managers where a “take it or leave it” attitude prevailed in some experiences”.
I am obliged to react to this though:
Allowing something as benign as running out of space on the server to happen is rank unprofessionalism of the highest order and really beneath contempt, you really cannot do business with people like these and it is a shame – just because it was free does not mean it could be run with such levity.
The folks behind Nigerian Blogs Aggregator, are same people running Nairahost. It beats me then, how disk space can be an issue. The only problem I have seen sometime ago on their site was an error message. (Can’t remember the exact error). I promptly notified Kazey to fix it.
Now, back to Naijalive.net:
In this case, there is no competition but a pretender replacement for once established NBA service.
🙂 Ouch. That hurts. 🙂
Comments were left on that blog and those did not reflect back at the source – I am sorry, it is not my intention to have a backup of my blog on another site without agreeing on the quality and state of publication – the key should be aggregation and not sub-standard duplication.
Like more knowledgeable people have opined, there are better aggregators than the one implemented, another indicated it looked like an illegal scrapping of contents. In fact, I expect that any publication of my material in sites I do not exercise control over should include citations and acknowledgements.
Besides, I know full well how I want my blogs and material to be displayed, they are displayed as you can find on my blog, any aesthetic changes to the layout or formatting should and must only be done with my expressly granted permission. More so, it is really better to publish the headers and probably the summary, just like NBA did.
Akin’s critique, is on the mark. When Naijalive.net started, they did not quote their sources at all and did not link back to the original blog and this made their “aggregation” strictly plagiarism. I would have had no problem if all Naijalive.net did was to re-publish an excerpt of my posts like NBA does.
If anything at all, I’m okay that they’re removing my blog and have now published their contact info on their website. Made me wonder though, how would anyone put-up a website without their contact information?
Do not get me wrong. There is absolutely no reason for NBA not to have competition but such competition must raise the standards and not merely offer a mediocre alternative. What is worth doing at all, is worth doing well. I’m sure no one is complaining about Afrigator, AfricanLoft, AltNigeria, AfricanPath who are all good alternatives to BlogAfrica and Global Voices, in their own ways.
To Naijalive.net, apologies accepted. 🙂
Nigerian Blogger Aggregation is back online.
You guys should give us a break. The Super Blog is still in beta so why all this harsh remarks?. There is a broad line between constructive and destructive criticism and unfortunately, your remarks are not helping our image at all.
The Nigerian Super Blog is a website that is constantly and RAPIDLY evolving. All this castigating is giving people the wrong ideas about the entire Project and its not fair. Indeed it makes us wonder whether anybody gets the point of having preview (or beta) versions of websites. A preview/beta version of a website is meant to correct bugs, fix errors and make modifications based on visitor feedback. And it says “preview” on the Super Blog, doesn’t it?
We have been and are still begging for visitor and blogger feedback and all the changes that have been made on the website so far are 100% due to the feedback we have been receiving so far.
Aside from the full-post-vs-excerpts thing, we have implemented just about every other issue that you guys complained about. And we will not hesitate to thank you, even though the language used (especially by Mr. Akin) borders on being confrontational if not insultive.
O boy we no know the guy before and we never quarrel with am before so Mr. Akin, which level na???.
We are very concerned about making blunders that is why we solicit and act upon feedback. We are not trying to prove anything, we have not said we know it all, we have virtually begged for reactions and we have reacted swiftly to all feedback. So why all the fuss??? What else can we do? Shut down the site?
We are very willing to learn and if you have the time, you may want to read this post we made about the idea behind (and facilitators of) the Project so that you can begin to understand the true nature of NaijaLive (please patiently go through the entire write up). Then maybe you can find the time, to leave a comment on our new feedback page.
And thanks for accepting our apologies. We shall hope you will consider letting us re-add your blog after we must have sorted out the full posts/excerpts thingy because we do enjoy reading your blog.
Much Love from the NaijaLive people
P.S: We are still deleting your blog posts and we ask that you give us till the weekend to have them all completely removed.
I already said “apologies accepted”. Don’t worsen your case by try to be insulting.
NB: Emmanuel, I forgot to add it in my post. I knew Nigerian Blogs Aggregator was back. Thanks.
[…] Issues within the Nigerian blogosphere over blog aggregation and plagiarism by Oluniyi David Ajao. […]
Someone rapes my blog without permission, I complain and my comments border on insulting?
I want my blog removed from that thing – immediately. These people’s lack of ethical conduct is amazing.
I was willing to leave my blog on that forum after I received a lengthy apology, but now reading their comments about my blog here is just the very last straw.
A little more research and professionalism on their part would have resolved this issue, Beta or no Beta, business principle of decency in the usage of other people’s material must be pre-eminent.
Trying all that “Nigerianese” does not wash with me. No thanks!
[…] reading Akin’s critique, David wrote another post: Akin’s critique, is on the mark. When Naijalive.net started, they did not quote their sources […]