The difference between stealing content (ie, mugging) and submitting a feed is that submitting an RSS feed is an intentional act on the part of the content provider. I did not come to your site and take information. You submitted your content to a blog aggregator using a syndication feed, which means that you intended for it to be syndicated.

An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed is used expressly for the purpose of syndicating content. When done correctly, it will drive users to your site. You submitted your site to Nothing Wavering. Nothing Wavering took your feed, exactly as you submitted it, added others and then provided an RSS feed of that aggregation to other sites (like mine) so that your site can reach a broader audience. Increasing your reach was your intent in publishing the feed.

In this case, your feed wasn’t formatted the way you preferred. This is not *my* fault, nor is it the fault of Nothing Wavering. You simply have a settings issue. Now that you know what the problem is, you can fix your feed to show your name and link and however much information you want (or don’t want) published.

I can understand why you would be upset that you content was published in a way that did not give you the credit a content provider deserves, but kindly stop blaming me for the errors in your syndication settings.

[Mrs. Smith, I referred to you as "Mr." because that is how you incorrectly referred to me.

The formatting issues have nothing to do with the material you were reposting on your own website without permission -- the formatting discussed in comments occurred AFTER I switched the settings to prevent the easy theft of material by you and others like you. No one is blaming you for formatting problems; don't try to shift the focus from your own dishonest practices that way.

I repeat, you have no right to publish my material on your website, regardless of format, regardless of source, regardless of your own ignorance, regardless of your intent. You simply have no right to my material, any more than my downloading of a song from iTunes entitles me to distribute it, or my reading of an online newspaper entitles me to post the text of all the articles I like, or my visit to your website entitles me to snag your material and post it here at Keepa. It amazes me that you cannot understand something that simple. -- AEP]

No one, at least at my website, is interested in “stealing” the full text belonging to Mr. Parshall or any one else. This is a settings issue with feeds that KeepAPitchin is publishing to third party aggregators, in this case, nothingwavering.org.

If you do not wish for your articles to be published in their entirety through NothingWavering to everywhere else, please do change your feed settings. But do not rant at me or anyone else because you erroneously submitted an entire article there.

[Please note that I did not "out" a single person or organization by name, and that Mr. Smith has chosen himself to admit to wrongdoing in this public fashion. Also, my choice to publish at Nothing Wavering does not cancel my copyright or grant permission for some unknown person to take my work. Mr. Smith's defense is like saying a mugger is justified in taking my cash because if I hadn't wanted it stolen I would not have withdrawn it from the ATM. -- AEP]

(That said, I see it as a sort of backhanded compliment, however unsavory and unethical the tactic, which of course I’m not condoning. )

You have my vote.

I’d prefer to make it as convenient as possible for you to access Keepa – I don’t mind, for instance, when NothingWavering.org republishes the full text, even though that means I don’t have any idea of who or how many people are reading (the thrill of the stats is part of the payback for blogging, you have to realize) – but the for-profit sites are just too much to bear right now.