Stolen Articles : Why do you make such a big deal about it?

 

If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you will know I get pretty uptight about people stealing my stuff. When I point it out I will often get some comeback from people asking why I make such a fuss about it. Here’s why.

Let me start by saying I am not delusional about what I do. I don’t think any one article in isolation is so special compared to all the other stuff out there. There are a lot of people that do what I do. It’s hard to be objective about yourself, but I think I have a few things going for me.

  • I’m pretty good at deciding what not to include in an article. Despite what a lot of people say, the Oracle documentation is good. The problem is there is much more detail than most people need for their day-to-day job. I think what I do pretty well is remove a lot of the extra stuff and make it seem less daunting, whilst giving links to the docs for those that want to dig deeper.
  • I try to include small simple copy/paste examples to demonstrate what I am saying. This is completely down to the influence of people like Tom Kyte. I did not invent this style.
  • I keep revising articles to try to improve them. It is rare something on the website goes live and is never touched again.
  • Other people have come and gone. I’ve consistently invested in my skill set (23+ years) and my website (18+ years).

Every article is what I (Tim Hall) think is important about the feature. Every blog post is my (Tim Hall’s) perspective on the issue. There is a bit of me, for better or for worse, in everything that goes out there. Over the years there have been plenty of people who have offered to write for me. I could easily have, and probably should have, turned this into a site that required almost none of my time, had a bigger scope and probably made a lot of money. Instead it is just me and what I’ve created.

I guess the best analogy would be the difference between someone stealing a car you’ve bought, compared with someone stealing a car you’ve spent years restoring. Both are bad, but the second one is gonna feel a lot worse as it feels personal.

With all that in mind, when someone takes something I’ve spent my time to produce and in a few seconds publishes it on their website I get pretty angry. Despite what you might think, I don’t mention every incident. Most get dealt with in private, but occasionally I go supernova and take to twitter. 🙂

So that’s it. That’s why you sometimes see me go ballistic over someone nicking some crappy article. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Author: Tim...

DBA, Developer, Author, Trainer.

3 thoughts on “Stolen Articles : Why do you make such a big deal about it?”

  1. Give em hell Tim! Why can’t they just write their own stuff? Cause they don’t have the experience to do it! Keep up the good work and good fight!

  2. Tim,

    I’m sorry to hear you’ve had your work stolen like this. I totally get your frustration. I’ve had my photos stolen and it really cheeses me off!
    Good luck tracking down the lazy thieves!

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