Content Rewriting - Is it a good thing or does it hurt the decentralized world?

[Who_]

I've been a cryptocurrency journalist for 2 years, and in my time writing for various outlets, I've had to rewrite news numerous times. It led me to the conclusion that a lot of content is rewritten and regurgitated and then published as their own. As time passed, I started to realize the importance of referencing your sources, and building relationships with other websites.

This is still going on at impressive rates!

In my opinion, rewriting is a big part of content creation and it is a necessary way to reduce time spent researching (by relying on information presented by authority websites), but at the same time, it is taken out of context for the fast and easy publication of various types of content.

In news writing, there is almost no space for rewriting, as it is much more effective and relevant to tag the source of the information and to present the story behind your story. There is no shame in being the one reporting about a report, but a lot of newspapers pretend like it the ideas came from them, when in fact they don't.

I've done this in the past when I was getting started, but learned along the way, that there is so much more value in transparency.

What are your thoughts?

Is rewriting a good thing or does it hurt decentralization?

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[suchmoon]

I think it's BS. Not sure what's driving it (clickbait?) but from the reader's perspective it's far better when you reference the source, perhaps provide a brief summary, and then add any additional info / research / etc. Rewritten content is not just a waste of time for the reader when they realize 3 paragraphs into the article that it's the same shit they've read on another site, but it often skews the original content in misleading ways.

I don't know about decentralization though. Authoritative sources are needed. "Crowd-sourced" journalism sucks big time. Fact-checking is becoming extinct.

[Who_]

I think it's BS. Not sure what's driving it (clickbait?) but from the reader's perspective it's far better when you reference the source, perhaps provide a brief summary, and then add any additional info / research / etc. Rewritten content is not just a waste of time for the reader when they realize 3 paragraphs into the article that it's the same shit they've read on another site, but it often skews the original content in misleading ways.

I don't know about decentralization though. Authoritative sources are needed. "Crowd-sourced" journalism sucks big time. Fact-checking is becoming extinct.

I see it too. I don't think it's clickbait, it's just a lack of perspective on how journalism actually works. It took me some time to realize this, but I'm committed to making a change.

Most of the time there is not a lot of additional information, and articles are heavily opinionated, most of journalism is crowd-sourced in a way, but it is a very specific crowd. Reporting on world news is very different than reporting on blockchain tech since anybody can become anything.

I'm proof of that, as I've never studied journalism, but through practice and through asking questions to the right people have grown to realize certain truths.

Journalism should be about presenting the facts and not twisting perspectives. It should be about sharing information, and not about pretending to be original. It should be about the community, but the community needs to be vetted.

I believe journalism is becoming increasingly decentralized, and soon some sort of project or solution will pop up to address the needs of journalists, and readers.

[paxmao]

We live in the world of the 5 seconds attention span and the 100 chars twitter news. Why would a journalist bother to do a proper research, have sources and even be present where the news are when the public is asking for volume without quality?

[Who_]

We live in the world of the 5 seconds attention span and the 100 chars twitter news. Why would a journalist bother to do a proper research, have sources and even be present where the news are when the public is asking for volume without quality?

Journalistic integrity and because it is really important to report realistically. Right now it's a developing sector, but for any publication to thrive, they need to create high-quality content.

Can you see an empty tweet with filler text going viral? Can you imagine TechCrunch creating shit-posts?

Creating and publishing empty headlines without doing the research is the surefire way to not grow your website in the long-run.

What you want are loyal readers, that come back to you day after day for their news. And this means developing quality, as opposed to quantity.

[bitmover]

Can you see an empty tweet with filler text going viral? Can you imagine TechCrunch creating shit-posts?

There are good sites like techcrunch ... However I think that very good texts  have a somehow restricted audience.

Most of the times I see stupid texts like "what is the next Bitcoin?", "How to get free money mining" Receiving a lot more views than a good article.

Those regurgitate articles probably are the ones that receive a lot of views also..

Also, to be listed in the google news you need to publish a lot of news. Google prefers quantity over quality, so everyone just regurgitate the same articles on and on.. specially on fresh websites

[rugrats]

Content rewriting isn't original so there's plagiarism. Plus, it won't be of much benefit because there won't be new ideas circulating around which is what its necessary for growth.

[Who_]

There are good sites like techcrunch ... However I think that very good texts  have a somehow restricted audience.

[/quote]

Techcrunch is a great publication. They know their stuff.

Most of the times I see stupid texts like "what is the next Bitcoin?", "How to get free money mining" Receiving a lot more views than a good article.

This is only stupid if the website does not offer beginner guides and the article doesn't say "We've got enough POW currencies. What we need is innovation, not yet another Bitcoin nation.", but you are right. Most websites do not say what I just did and try to convince people that one currency is this or that.

Those regurgitate articles probably are the ones that receive a lot of views also..

If it is big news, they do get a lot of views and a lot of attention, but in the end whatever they say is weaker in comparison to market leaders such as CoinTelegraph and CoinDesk.

Also, to be listed in the google news you need to publish a lot of news. Google prefers quantity over quality, so everyone just regurgitate the same articles on and on.. specially on fresh websites

This is unclear. The point with news is that the most difficult part is to source the information. To be the first one with the news, and to publish at a time when it is still relevant.

Because things happen so quickly, it is difficult to attain this, but there needs to be a mechanism in place that prevents bad content from going out, and this is a collaboration between marketing and editorial.

Content rewriting isn't original so there's plagiarism. Plus, it won't be of much benefit because there won't be new ideas circulating around which is what its necessary for growth.

It can be original if you add value. It can be as short as a question or pointing out a flaw in a story from another website.

News websites today are like people in a club, they will do anything to avoid eye contact, but everybody wants to get the girl's (audience) attention.

I think if businesses are more courageous they can achieve higher levels of success.

Rewriting with added value is original content.

[jeffthebaker]

I disagree with the "need" to regurgitate news. I'm a writer for NullTx (formerly The Merkle) and prioritize original content over all else. I'll cover breaking news if it's very significant (i.e. SEC rules Ethereum not a Security), but more often than not I'm writing about stellar projects that you may not hear about elsewhere. My articles that do the best are unique and talk about applications in the real world, projects within a certain niche, strategies for participation/trading in crypto, etc etc etc. My worst articles are the breaking news. Everything is posted 10x and the odds someone goes to your are slim to none.

[Who_]

I disagree with the "need" to regurgitate news. I'm a writer for NullTx (formerly The Merkle) and prioritize original content over all else. I'll cover breaking news if it's very significant (i.e. SEC rules Ethereum not a Security), but more often than not I'm writing about stellar projects that you may not hear about elsewhere. My articles that do the best are unique and talk about applications in the real world, projects within a certain niche, strategies for participation/trading in crypto, etc etc etc. My worst articles are the breaking news. Everything is posted 10x and the odds someone goes to your are slim to none.

I agree original content is the most important aspect, and that is the way you can compete with other publishers. You offer something different, and it's not the 10x news stories that you have seen everywhere.

So the real success for a news website is to actually bring the news to the public. To be the source out of which others are rewriting from. Hopefully getting a few backlinks as well.

While I understand when you say that there is no need for rewriting content as seen from your perspective, I still believe there is a benefit for your readers, especially for your most loyal audience.

You can also aggregate news, but that is most likely going to hurt your SEO efforts, so rewriting is your way to protect yourself from Google's weird policy on aggregation. Rewriting is seen as original in the eyes of SERP, so people do it.

But does it really bring any value to your actual readers, if you have a cryptocurrency news website?

Considering it is news and that if you want to remain competitive, you need to be the one providing the news first, or at least that's how it seems.

In fact, most of the time people do not spend time reading articles, but rather spend time reading headlines and scrolling, only opening them when they are in fact compelled to do so. Understanding your audience is a key factor in creating content that provides value.

In a way, rewriting is a perfect way to provide your most loyal readers, the ones who wouldn't look to other sources for information, with insight of what is happening on the marketplaces, without hurting your SEO results.

By the way, really a great portfolio of traffic on your website.



It looks pretty good.

[jeffthebaker]

I disagree with the "need" to regurgitate news. I'm a writer for NullTx (formerly The Merkle) and prioritize original content over all else. I'll cover breaking news if it's very significant (i.e. SEC rules Ethereum not a Security), but more often than not I'm writing about stellar projects that you may not hear about elsewhere. My articles that do the best are unique and talk about applications in the real world, projects within a certain niche, strategies for participation/trading in crypto, etc etc etc. My worst articles are the breaking news. Everything is posted 10x and the odds someone goes to your are slim to none.

I agree original content is the most important aspect, and that is the way you can compete with other publishers. You offer something different, and it's not the 10x news stories that you have seen everywhere.

So the real success for a news website is to actually bring the news to the public. To be the source out of which others are rewriting from. Hopefully getting a few backlinks as well.

While I understand when you say that there is no need for rewriting content as seen from your perspective, I still believe there is a benefit for your readers, especially for your most loyal audience.

You can also aggregate news, but that is most likely going to hurt your SEO efforts, so rewriting is your way to protect yourself from Google's weird policy on aggregation. Rewriting is seen as original in the eyes of SERP, so people do it.

But does it really bring any value to your actual readers, if you have a cryptocurrency news website?

Considering it is news and that if you want to remain competitive, you need to be the one providing the news first, or at least that's how it seems.

In fact, most of the time people do not spend time reading articles, but rather spend time reading headlines and scrolling, only opening them when they are in fact compelled to do so. Understanding your audience is a key factor in creating content that provides value.

In a way, rewriting is a perfect way to provide your most loyal readers, the ones who wouldn't look to other sources for information, with insight of what is happening on the marketplaces, without hurting your SEO results.

By the way, really a great portfolio of traffic on your website.



It looks pretty good.

Glad to see traffic is good I don't work much with the analytics but I like to think my articles help contribute.

In a perfect world, I think the best approach would be for a site to orchestrate some function that calls upon blockchain/digital media oracles to automatically generate stories for breaking news/major announcements (labeled/organized differently from organic articles, ofc) alongside unique content written by the site's writers.

But yes, I do suppose there is a need to reward loyal readers by providing them all the breaking news, even if you don't get to it first. I still stand by the belief, however, that the unique pieces or the ones to rank merit by.

[Who_]

Glad to see traffic is good I don't work much with the analytics but I like to think my articles help contribute.

I'm sure they do! All writers that create unique content tailored to a crypto audience provide a benefit for publishers.

In a perfect world, I think the best approach would be for a site to orchestrate some function that calls upon blockchain/digital media oracles to automatically generate stories for breaking news/major announcements (labeled/organized differently from organic articles, ofc) alongside unique content written by the site's writers.

Decentralized journalism is a far cry for now. I'm doing an experiment in kickstarting a community-sourced news website We will see how it goes.

But yes, I do suppose there is a need to reward loyal readers by providing them all the breaking news, even if you don't get to it first. I still stand by the belief, however, that the unique pieces or the ones to rank merit by.

Maybe a worldwide system that connects all stakeholders of the information flow.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I think it's BS. Not sure what's driving it (clickbait?) but from the reader's perspective it's far better when you reference the source, perhaps provide a brief summary, and then add any additional info / research / etc. Rewritten content is not just a waste of time for the reader when they realize 3 paragraphs into the article that it's the same shit they've read on another site, but it often skews the original content in misleading ways.

I don't know about decentralization though. Authoritative sources are needed. "Crowd-sourced" journalism sucks big time. Fact-checking is becoming extinct.

Hear, hear.  I rarely look at the news, since I'm pretty much a hermit in my free time.  That's because all of it is designed to be emotionally inflammatory and devoid of objectivity.  In addition, I see frequent mistakes in my area of expertise when they have to report on medicines (like calling Xanax an antidepressant).  Makes me wonder what they understand and what they bother to research before writing about it authoritatively. 

The worst thing I've seen is that if you search google for something, all of the results are from news sites and most of the articles all say the same thing, sometimes the exact same thing.  I think that's almost like playing a game of telephone, and if you've never done that one, get a bunch of friends and try it out.  When I want to hear real people talk about something like Dave Mirra's suicide, all (or most) the google results point to mainstream media sites that have clickbait advertising at the end of the article--and all the information is basically the same.

[Impulseboy]

I've been a cryptocurrency journalist for 2 years, and in my time writing for various outlets, I've had to rewrite news numerous times. It led me to the conclusion that a lot of content is rewritten and regurgitated and then published as their own. As time passed, I started to realize the importance of referencing your sources, and building relationships with other websites.

This is still going on at impressive rates!

In my opinion, rewriting is a big part of content creation and it is a necessary way to reduce time spent researching (by relying on information presented by authority websites), but at the same time, it is taken out of context for the fast and easy publication of various types of content.

In news writing, there is almost no space for rewriting, as it is much more effective and relevant to tag the source of the information and to present the story behind your story. There is no shame in being the one reporting about a report, but a lot of newspapers pretend like it the ideas came from them, when in fact they don't.

I've done this in the past when I was getting started, but learned along the way, that there is so much more value in transparency.

What are your thoughts?

Is rewriting a good thing or does it hurt decentralization?

To be honest, I don't see the point of rewriting a copy especially if you have enough content to write about. I kind of find it lazy, but I guess to each his own. Maybe rewriting is okay if you are also the writer of the original content, but I still don't think rewriting is okay. Maybe it's okay to use it and take a couple of phrases from it but to actually use the same content? Yeah, I don't know.

[Who_]

To be honest, I don't see the point of rewriting a copy especially if you have enough content to write about. I kind of find it lazy, but I guess to each his own. Maybe rewriting is okay if you are also the writer of the original content, but I still don't think rewriting is okay. Maybe it's okay to use it and take a couple of phrases from it but to actually use the same content? Yeah, I don't know.

I agree. And I've been thinking about it since I started this thread. There are benefits of doing so, but it is very important how you do it.

Most news websites fail to communicate and partner up with other news websites. Partnering and communicating is the best way to do this, especially if you don't know how to source original news pieces, or you have the publication say that everything that is a press release is supposed to be paid. Some press releases are so damn interesting to readers that you just write about them.

I always link to the original source of the story, and the publication from where I got the news.

Sourcing news is difficult, which is why most publications rewrite in a very "brain-dead" way.

That's not me, and I will do my best to never have it be me.

[jeffthebaker]

Glad to see traffic is good I don't work much with the analytics but I like to think my articles help contribute.

I'm sure they do! All writers that create unique content tailored to a crypto audience provide a benefit for publishers.

In a perfect world, I think the best approach would be for a site to orchestrate some function that calls upon blockchain/digital media oracles to automatically generate stories for breaking news/major announcements (labeled/organized differently from organic articles, ofc) alongside unique content written by the site's writers.

Decentralized journalism is a far cry for now. I'm doing an experiment in kickstarting a community-sourced news website We will see how it goes.

But yes, I do suppose there is a need to reward loyal readers by providing them all the breaking news, even if you don't get to it first. I still stand by the belief, however, that the unique pieces or the ones to rank merit by.

Maybe a worldwide system that connects all stakeholders of the information flow.

Believe it or not, decentralized or at least automated journalism might not be that far off. In fact, many of the developments necessary already exist. For example, a network for automated news could communicate with an oracle geared towards smart contracts, such as Thomson Reuter's BlockOne IQ, to receive automated feeds of financial data and crypto-related news. From there, I'm sure there are a million different scripts for bot-generated content to convey the information. In conjunction with automated trading bots, the generated content could also interpret price actions or charts.

However I'm not sure how effective such a network could be for news that is not related to price movements.

Although it could be argued that Steemit sort of already counts for decentralized journalism.

[Who_]

Glad to see traffic is good I don't work much with the analytics but I like to think my articles help contribute.

I'm sure they do! All writers that create unique content tailored to a crypto audience provide a benefit for publishers.

In a perfect world, I think the best approach would be for a site to orchestrate some function that calls upon blockchain/digital media oracles to automatically generate stories for breaking news/major announcements (labeled/organized differently from organic articles, ofc) alongside unique content written by the site's writers.

Decentralized journalism is a far cry for now. I'm experimenting with kickstarting a community-sourced news website. We will see how it goes.

But yes, I do suppose there is a need to reward loyal readers by providing them with all the breaking news, even if you don't get to it first. I still stand by the belief, however, that the unique pieces or the ones to rank merit by.

Maybe a worldwide system that connects all stakeholders of the information flow.

Believe it or not, decentralized or at least automated journalism might not be that far off. In fact, many of the developments necessary already exist. For example, a network for automated news could communicate with an oracle geared towards smart contracts, such as Thomson Reuter's BlockOne IQ, to receive automated feeds of financial data and crypto-related news. From there, I'm sure there are a million different scripts for bot-generated content to convey the information. In conjunction with automated trading bots, the generated content could also interpret price actions or charts.

However, I'm not sure how effective such a network could be for news that is not related to price movements.

Although it could be argued that Steemit sort of already counts for decentralized journalism.

I don't have a lot of time right now to prepare a better response, but for sake of moving the discussion towards value, I will say this.

Journalism is vetted, edited to represent an idea, to protect people from harmful information, and to enable the communication of valuable ideas.

The main point is to trust the news provider because people want somebody that they can trust to provide or at least ONLY publish vetted content, with due-diligence performed. They are too busy to check the facts, they want to know what's up and continue with their lives.

But this doesn't mean that it is not the news outlet responsibility to provide high-quality information. In fact, low quality and lies are the best ways not to be in the top 10% of publishers. So, it is also in the news outlet's interests to provide great content for their readers.

Decentralized networks are overcrowded, and while Steemit attracts a lot of users, it is akin to a social media platform where you can find sources. It is the news agencies to position source information on these platforms in order to grow their brand, following, and actually impact people's lives in a positive way.

This is possible, and I am doing my best to create this type of network, a win-win-win news station that provides unbiased, community-generated, source news pieces, that other publications would refer to if they thought the stories are interesting.

It's all about finding the most exciting, interesting story, but also valuable, and checked through a strict due-diligence process.

[jeffthebaker]

Yes, the merit discussion is certainly a very key component to journalism that I didn't think about when hypothesizing if automated journalism "could be" possible. You're right, I don't think I see myself following something like that and I doubt many others would, either.

Good luck with your platform, I will be on the lookout for it

[Who_]

Yes, the merit discussion is certainly a very key component to journalism that I didn't think about when hypothesizing if automated journalism "could be" possible. You're right, I don't think I see myself following something like that and I doubt many others would, either.

Good luck with your platform, I will be on the lookout for it

It's going to take time since it's a voluntary service for now, but as I make more money with copywriting, I can reinvest more into bettering the overall information sourcing industry for cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

Step, by step, and all in due time.