Article Writing

Richard Deeming16-Feb-17 1:59

Richard Deeming

16-Feb-17 1:59

Smells like spam to me.

If it was comparing the commercial option to one of the[^] many[^] free[^] alternatives[^], then it might be acceptable.

But as it stands, it reads like he's been paid to promote the tool. And if I recall correctly, it wouldn't be the first time we've seen spam for that product.

"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer

Sean Ewington16-Feb-17 4:02

16-Feb-17 4:02

In some cases if it's an author who has written a few articles already, it might be OK. But I've seen enough instances where authors seemingly post an article on their own, only to learn that a company hired them to do so. So generally, if you see an article on a third party product or service that doesn't specifically solve a problem or offer a workaround to a known or discovered issue with that third party product or service, give it a wary eye (in the case of experienced authors). For first-time authors, we will typically remove the article.

Even though this author has been around awhile I have opted to remove this one. Thanks for the catch.

Thanks,
Sean Ewington
CodeProject

Nelek16-Feb-17 19:51

16-Feb-17 19:51

Sean Ewington wrote:
or first-time authors, we will typically remove the article.

Even though this author has been around awhile I have opted to remove this one. Thanks for the catch.

Not only he has been around long enough, he has been named a couple of times in the S&A Watch if I recall correctly. It seems he likes to explore the limits

M.D.V.

If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.

F-ES Sitecore17-Feb-17 1:31

F-ES Sitecore

17-Feb-17 1:31

Have to say I never really understood this whole third-party\commercial product thing. Yeah I get the whole paid-to-promote thing and why those articles are removed, but to pick an app at random (Outlook) I see many articles on Outlook yet that's a commercial product that isn't free. There are loads of articles on iTextSharp and for commercial use that isn't free either. Just seems a bit arbitrary that you can do articles on some commercial products but not others.

Sean Ewington17-Feb-17 3:31

Should blog entries published outside CP be allowed to be re-posted on CP ?

17-Feb-17 3:31

I don't think I'm going to be able to draw a definitive line in the sand for every case scenario, but generally, 1st party products are fine, or what a typical developer in the space would have access to are fine. Then it comes down to more of a judgement call. How many articles has the author posted before? What is the tone of the piece? Is the author attempting to fill a hole that exists in documentation or a known problem? How many times have we seen this particular product or company put up a suspicious article or blog entry or press release such that it seems like a spammy agenda?

Maybe sometimes we get it wrong, but on more than one occasion we've removed a suspicious looking article written by a person who doesn't appear to be associated with a company, then had a marketing rep from that same company contact our sales team and ask, "why did our article get deleted?" Which means we err on the side of caution.

It's also possible there are articles out there we simply haven't caught yet.

Thanks,
Sean Ewington
CodeProject

BillWoodruff15-Feb-17 8:15

BillWoodruff

15-Feb-17 8:15

On CP: [^]

On the web: [^]

Note: the first article in this series has no downloadable code; the second article has a link to the author's PDSA site to a download file.

The author says these are blog entriws in the text (on CP), but they appear as articles, here.

imho, both articles do little beyond showing you code examples of the type that are typically found in MS documentation, and there is little value re-posting them on CP as articles.

«There is a spectrum, from "clearly desirable behaviour," to "possibly dodgy behavior that still makes some sense," to "clearly undesirable behavior." We try to make the latter into warnings or, better, errors. But stuff that is in the middle category you don’t want to restrict unless there is a clear way to work around it.» Eric Lippert, May 14, 2008

Re: Should blog entries published outside CP be allowed to be re-posted on CP ?

Nelek15-Feb-17 9:40

Re: Should blog entries published outside CP be allowed to be re-posted on CP ?

15-Feb-17 9:40

AFAIK the blogs are automatically fed... you r´write them outside cp and cp takes them in.

If the other blog is private then you can't do anything there, but you can here report them as poor quality or as incomplete.

M.D.V.

BillWoodruff15-Feb-17 10:30

BillWoodruff

15-Feb-17 10:30

Hi, Nelek,

I'm just wondering what the value is, for CodeProject, of publishing "re-prints," with links that take you to an external site (of a business) to get code. Is that "site-driving" ?

It appears to me that CP lists these blogs as articles, not blogs; if that's correct, imho, neither one meets what I consider the "standard" for an article.

Maybe I am way off-base, here.

cheers, Bill

Re: Should blog entries published outside CP be allowed to be re-posted on CP ?

Chris Maunder15-Feb-17 12:03

Chris Maunder

15-Feb-17 12:03

BillWoodruff wrote:
It appears to me that CP lists these blogs as articles, not blogs;

We republish Technical blogs, and they are to be held to the same standards as articles.

They aren't announcements or rambling streams of thought.

cheers
Chris Maunder

Is this allowed for blogs?

Nelek14-Feb-17 19:33

14-Feb-17 19:33

This Blog[^] says at the end...

Quote:
This is not the full article. The the full article with the complete source code can be found @ http://own_blog_edited
This article was written by Kevin Ng @ http://own_blog_edited

For me this is a blatant site driving... or am I seeing it wrong?

@Sean-ewington what do you say?

M.D.V.

Pete O'Hanlon14-Feb-17 20:56

Pete O'Hanlon

14-Feb-17 20:56

It looks like site-driving to me.

This space for rent

Nelek15-Feb-17 0:50

15-Feb-17 0:50

For me too... but I don't want to report it without having asked first.

M.D.V.

Richard Deeming15-Feb-17 2:22

Richard Deeming

15-Feb-17 2:22

I agree with Pete - it's site-driving spam.

The same message is on almost all of his blog posts: Technical Blogs[^]

"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer

Sean Ewington15-Feb-17 4:40

15-Feb-17 4:40

This guy is giving me a headache.

I've already deleted most of his articles for being too similar. I've gone through, removed the links at the bottom of the articles and sent him a warning. If he does it again, descend.

Thanks,
Sean Ewington
CodeProject

Nelek15-Feb-17 6:44

15-Feb-17 6:44

thanks sean, if I get him another time... should I tell you? or just fire in the hole?

M.D.V.

Sean Ewington15-Feb-17 6:50

15-Feb-17 6:50

Fire in the hole. (on new posts, mind you. Feb. 16th and beyond)

Thanks,
Sean Ewington
CodeProject

Nelek15-Feb-17 7:01

15-Feb-17 7:01

M.D.V.

Pete O'Hanlon15-Feb-17 8:40

Pete O'Hanlon

15-Feb-17 8:40

I have the depth charges primed and ready.

This space for rent

Nelek15-Feb-17 9:37

15-Feb-17 9:37

Blog fed 20 mins ago and another time with the same text... Not sure if it is a new one, or maybe he is editing and rolling back to the previous version

I have made a search with "Kevin AND ng", there were over 30 items, many already deleted, but many others with the link on the middle of the text as a "side note"

I am not sure if he is going to learn the lesson with good manners.

M.D.V.

Re: How I should see this?

Pete O'Hanlon15-Feb-17 9:47

Pete O'Hanlon

15-Feb-17 9:47

Looks like it's a new violation. Time to take action.

This space for rent

How I should see this?

Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter11-Feb-17 23:30

Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter

11-Feb-17 23:30

Look at the series starting with this article:
Learning MVC - Part 1: Introduction to MVC Architecture and Separation of Concerns[^]
IMHO, none of the single parts makes it into an article (we actually have to open a 'slideshow' category for these)... Maybe combined (and 95% of the images replaced with some work)...

Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.

Nelek12-Feb-17 9:47

Re: How I should see this?

12-Feb-17 9:47

I agree with you.
But I was told by Chris that articles is the default cathegory, if it doesn't fits the "consumable in 30 seconds" then it should be an article.

In this case I haven't checked all the items in the serie, but the first one I would place it more in "poor quality" than in "worng type" kind of report.

M.D.V.

Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter12-Feb-17 9:56

Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter

12-Feb-17 9:56

And the first is maybe have the most quality... others are going than and in the middle there are parts that no more than image gallery... And the 'author' shows-off with thousands of reputation points (that probably helped him to gain MVP too) from this poor quality... Very disappointing...

Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.

Re: How I should see this?

Nelek12-Feb-17 10:05