If You Post, PLS GIVE YOUR FEEDBACK Re- this DU Rule

[CC27]

snot  (1000+ posts)      Mon Jul-06-09 05:07 PM
Original message
If You Post, PLS GIVE YOUR FEEDBACK Re- this DU Rule
 Edited on Mon Jul-06-09 05:10 PM by snot
As you know, DU is concerned not to publish copyright violations. As a guideline, one of their rules is that we shouldn't copy and paste more than 4 paragraphs of someone else's writing.

But increasingly, MANY sources are formatting EACH SENTENCE as if it were a separate paragraph -- even if under classical rules, many of those sentences should be included in one paragraph -- and EVEN when the resulting, broken-off paragraph is grammatically NOT even a complete sentence, but is only a sentence fragment.

E.g., "But from the very beginning, we’ve told you this rally was merely the calm before the next big storm, a big selling opportunity."

Under what I believe to be still valid conventions of correct English style, "but" is a conjunction indicating that what follows should be part of the preceding sentence; it's considered incorrect to start a separate sentence with conjunctions such as "but," "and," or the like.

I'm not sure if authors/publications are adopting this "one sentence or sentence-fragment = one paragraph" approach in order to be able to claim copyright violations more readily, or if it's just a way to try to get people to actually pay attention to each sentence. But it represents a complete transformation of what should be expected to be included in one paragraph and certainly changes the meaning of the "4 paragraphs" rule.

I realize the 4-paragraph rule is part of an effort to try to create a legal bright-line/safe-harbor rule that's easy for us to follow and for the moderators to enforce.

I respectfully suggest that at this point, it might make more sense adopt a rule such as, e.g., "10% of total words." I think pretty much everyone with a computer also has word-count and mathematical calculator functions, so all quoters would have to do is copy the whole article, paste it into a new doc, count the words, calculate 10% of that, and make sure the portions they quote don't exceed that total. (I'm no expert in copyright law, but I've heard the 10% guideline used in connection with musical or other sampling.)

Applying a 10% rule to one recent article, for example, gives me 9, mostly single-sentence or sentence-fragment paragraphs, including one title as a paragraph.

On the other hand, really succinct sources would become virtually un-quotable -- but I think that's consistent with the intent of copyright law; and short quotes are relatively easily paraphrased.

Thoughts?

 
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6001561

[thundley4]

The poster has a valid point. More and more , news sites are posting their article with only 1-2 sentences in each paragraph.

[GOBUCKS]

It's a damn shame that more people can't write with the beautiful melodious flow of words, the sheer eloquence of DUmmy W. Rivers Pitt.

Here, were I not prevented by a personal sense of taste, I would apply several of those dopey emoticons the DUmmies so adore.