Attention Local Writers: Is A Start Up Using Your Good Name To Get Contributors?

That's a good question. In one form, it allows my work to be shared with the rest of society and if they only provide a little snippet with a link directly to my site (I get visitor credit on adsense); in another way, I don't like people using my work without giving me the full credit.

One example, Fwix is using my content after they e-mailed me about their intentions, but... the links go directly to my site instead of them ripping off an RSS feed.

Boo. I was kind of hoping I would be on the list! (I am possibly lacking, as of late, validation and an opportunity to get my panties in a twist.)

Akit is correct and he is also having the same issues I have with Fwix and Everyblock. An rss feed is not a license to steal. I've seen my content ripped off in plenty of places...sucks!

They can rip me off, no questions asked. I'm just here for the beer.

Who's do I have to fuck get a political category on that thing?
(Rhetorical.)
(Kinda.)

The real question for me isn't the ripoff one -- that's a whole other conversation. It's the "hey here are the people who have agreed to do this, you should, too!" thing that seems concerning.

As I said in the story, if someone emailed me and said, hey, Phil and Laura and Corey are doing this, do you want to, and I had free time, I'd totally get on board!

But if someone told me those guys were just using their names to get me to do it, and/or using my name to get them (let's face it, no one uses my name for ANYTHING, I know, but go with me here), that would bug me!

But is that what they're doing? I'm not sure, we'll probably need to hear from more people on this "confirmed" list before we know for sure. So if you have those people's emails/follow them on Twitter/whatever, and you can ask them to look at the post (I swear I am not linkwhoring) and comment re their participation, I'd really appreciate it!

Julie of I Live Here/Caliber actually agreed to do it, so you could talk to them.

I also said I was somewhat interested and was willing to hear more about it and I am not on that list / was not given a list, just told that they were looking to put together a large team of writers. Sounds like they sent out this email to one person as a fluke?

Kevin, as we note in the story, this list was sent after a request from Laura for a definite list of contributors. I think it's a stretch that see that as a fluke.

I met Alex at the SF Weekly party last Wed. night. She told me about her project and I told her that it sounded cool. I told her that they should publish photos of mine from my $2 Portrait project. I'd be totally cool with that. Sounds like an interesting idea to aggregate art and culture in the city.

TH

Hi Eve,

I met with Alex and agreed to help out as well. The creative project is a not-for-profit blog with the sole intent of expressing what inspires contributors about San Francisco.

The shared doc is supposed to be a list of people we'd either like to work with or those that have expressed interest in helping, many of whom are our friends. It's essentially a contact list and not meant to be a solid list of contributors (the site isn't even up yet).

Anyway, I can't speak for everyone else, but I think this is a big miscommunication. It is NOT a definite list of contributors. Really sorry if anyone feels "burned" from this - especially Laura, because I think she's a fantastic writer and a great person - given that this is supposed to be a fun project about expressing our love of all things San Francisco.

Cheers,
Keane

Whoa, weird. I don't know how I got on the original list. Except that a quarter of my friends are on it, so there's that. Still creepy.

I should also add that I do get upset when I conduct research and I don't get proper credit for it. I've always appreciate SF Appeal (Eve in particular) for giving me credit for the research I do for TransLink.

KTVU really pissed me off when they used the figures that I found out first (without any credit, or even a thank you e-mail for me, doing the dirty work) do to a big piece of news of the 1.65 million cost for Translink's conversion to Clipper. Just how big was this news story? It was promoted on local radio stations.

Whoa, I forgot how cool my SF Appeal avatar was. Mission Mission is not involved.

My name is on that list and I'm also the one who put them in contact with Laura Beck because I think inspired city sounds like a great idea. It's unfortunate that you've used a genuine endeavor to further the SF creative community as fodder for simple internet fear-mongering. Maybe tomorrow you can warn the world about progesterex.

I was approached to contribute and agreed to when I saw who they had involved. No big drama on my end except that now I see that those folks were just their wish list. But, I suppose its nice to be on someone's wish list. They need to fix my line though, as I don't work for BOTH and only marginally with Burning Man (i'm one of maybe 300 DPW)...

I'm pretty offended that I'm not on any of these lists.

You're basically making a big production out of a company that has yet to exist. From your writing it sounds like a massive evil corporation has cobbled together a fabricated team of contributors. In reality you've written a knee jerk piece on a start up that is most likely comprised of starry eyed 20 somethings. Poor form mediocre blogger.

The point of this post is clearly not to "make a big production" or to create fodder for fear-mongering. Anyone who is even vaguely familiar with the SF Appeal knows Eve is a huge proponent of local blogs. As I said above, projects like these should rely on creative ideas to gain readers/writers, not "creative" (read: somewhat false) lists of contributors. If you're going to email around a wish list, call it a wish list! And, um, maybe do a little more research on the people you're hoping will contribute (Phil isn't the editor of the Chronicle anymore, Lydia Chavez's name isn't spelled right, apparently Jeff Ross has been mislabeled as well...etc. I mean, come on, even Wikipedia would have helped here!).

I wanted to write to SFAppeal and to the people that I have been in contact regarding Inspired City.

First I'd like to apologize to everyone who's been involved in this public miscommunication. Just to clarify, we are not a start-up company nor are we an established business. We're just a few San Franciscans who aspire to bring creatives of all shapes and sizes together in one digital community and share their content.

The shared doc (or list) was supposed to be a list of people we'd either like to work with or those that have expressed interest in helping, many of whom are friends of our. I made the mistake of sharing the list privately to those who we reached out to. I was not clear with some of my wording/phrasing of what "the contributors" list was, and I'm sorry to those who felt mislead or burned by this mix-up--never was that my intention.

I wanted to emphasize that Inspired City stated as an idea and is a work in progress. In no way were we using names and people to gain readership or public attention--we don't even have a website. Right now, we're looking to get this project off the ground. Of course we hope that it will take on a life of its own and become profitable, but we have yet to get that far. We never meant to come across as misleading or dishonest--that is not what I nor my partners are about.

Those who understand the intention of Inspired City know that we've come in contact with many sorts of people who we felt embodies the spirit of the San Francisco creative community, and that means many things to many different people. Whether it be Vegansaurus or SFAppeal, we reached out to these people because we were inspired by the work that they did, not to take credit or steal their work or business away. This project was suppose to be a collaborative, fun project that we could all collectively be a part of, not a reason to work against each other. It's unfortunate that this matter could not be handled privately between those who had questions or concerns, but what's done is done.

As I'm sure you can understand, this is a fledgling idea and we might not always have all of our ducks in a row. We apologize again for the miscommunication. My partners on this project and I have nothing but the best intentions.

Alex Hisaka

I wanted to write to SFAppeal and to the people that I have been in contact regarding Inspired City.

First I'd like to apologize to everyone who's been involved in this public miscommunication. Just to clarify, we are not a start-up company nor are we an established business. We're just a few San Franciscans who aspire to bring creatives of all shapes and sizes together in one digital community and share their content.

The shared doc (or list) was supposed to be a list of people we'd either like to work with or those that have expressed interest in helping, many of whom are friends of our. I made the mistake of sharing the list privately to those who we reached out to. I was not clear with some of my wording/phrasing of what "the contributors" list was, and I'm sorry to those who felt mislead or burned by this mix-up--never was that my intention.

I wanted to emphasize that Inspired City stated as an idea and is a work in progress. In no way were we using names and people to gain readership or public attention--we don't even have a website. Right now, we're looking to get this project off the ground. Of course we hope that it will take on a life of its own and become profitable, but we have yet to get that far. We never meant to come across as misleading or dishonest--that is not what I nor my partners are about.

Those who understand the intention of Inspired City know that we've come in contact with many sorts of people who we felt embodies the spirit of the San Francisco creative community, and that means many things to many different people. Whether it be Vegansaurus or SFAppeal, we reached out to these people because we were inspired by the work that they did, not to take credit or steal their work or business away. This project was suppose to be a collaborative, fun project that we could all collectively be a part of, not a reason to work against each other. It's unfortunate that this matter could not be handled privately between those who had questions or concerns, but what's done is done.

As I'm sure you can understand, this is a fledgling idea and we might not always have all of our ducks in a row. We apologize again for the miscommunication. My partners on this project and I have nothing but the best intentions.

Alex Hisaka

You're right. I'm not someone who reads SF Appeal often. I'm a random browser that happened upon it recently and if I'm to go on first perceptions I'll say that this article does indeed come across as "creating fodder for fear-mongering". The linked-in profile link, mention of her employment (w/ link), quotes that are no more than one word ("whaaaatttt?") very unprofessional journalism. Tell me the title isn't alarmist, "Attention Local Writers: Is A Start Up Using Your Good Name To Get Contributors?" ? ATTENTION: THE SKY IS FALLING!

Katie I think we both agree that "Inspired City" dropped the ball a little on their list, wish list, contributor list - debacle. What we don't agree on is the severity of their deserved scolding. You seem to think that their unprofessionalism warrants a public denouncement. I see their lack of polish as a sign of their newness to start-ups. We're not talking about Kevin Rose, we're talking about no name people trying to make a company. Instead of gently nudging them in the right direction this article puts them on a stake and hangs them out for others to gawk. How does this promote their healthy growth?

I was emailed this list and agreed to contribute in part because of some of the people involved, (at least one of which are actually involved.) Though not clearly stated, it was obvious from the way the list was written that it was in part a wish list. Next to each desired contributor was the name of someone from Inspired City in red parenthesis; it seemed to me the main people involved were divvying up the list to figure out who would try to obtain which writers.

The same day I was sent another emailed clarifying that the list was not a list of contributors.

While it wasn't 100% clear which people were already involved, I never thought the list was only of people who had agreed to contribute. I think that should have been clear to anyone who read the original list in context.

Gravity, I can see why you think this article is too harsh. But, without sounding pretentious, as someone who works in journalism I think a certain standard of professionalism is crucial and will, in fact, "promote healthy growth" of "start ups" (for lack of a better word) like Inspired City. I don't think Alex meant any harm, but she did not circulate the list privately (as she said in the comment above) - she sent it to many people, including myself. The list was unclearly labeled and misidentified numerous people. Enough people originally on this list were pissed enough about it to comment to the Appeal - that's not the way to recruit people to write for your site!

Hopefully this will encourage Inspired City and other similar endeavors to double check their sources and be more careful before sending out such correspondence. Regardless of whether the list thing was unintentional or otherwise, I think it's poor form to start off such an ambitious journalism project without knowing who exactly is contributing/what those people do exactly (seriously, no excuse for circulating an email that doesn't identify people correcty!).

Also, re: the identifying Alex, she is (happily and willingly) all over the internet already, so I don't really think that's an issue.

The list that's posted above is one that was sent to me after I asked for a list of names of people/blogs/websites who had signed on as contributors. Alex responded with that list of names and said, "I attached a working list of contributors to this email. These are the people so far that have said "yes," but we are still on the lookout for more help."

To me, that says that those people are definitely contributors. Because that's what it says. Does that make sense?

I'm no whiz at lists but it seems like it would be pretty easy to create different ones for people who have already signed on and for people they are working on.

Also, will this eventually be a money making thing for them? I am curious about that. I am all about contributing to the "cultural landscape" of San Francisco but I want to know the exact TOB. I'm not greedy or trying to make money but if someone is going to make money off my writing, I want to know what's going on.

They really like your writing, and they sent you an invite to participate. To editor@sfappeal.

Oh, shit, I was supposed to get my assistant on that!

Fair enough. It looks like I was eventually send a list of contributors but I was more under the impression that it was a business plan rather than a solid thing. Anyways, this is all a little misleading and not a good business practice but I don't see it as sinister.

I am a firm believer in giving Inspired City the benefit of the doubt. I received an email from Alex about a "blog in the works that will incorporate all things SF" -- I told her I was interested, and to please keep me posted on what the next step would be. I think the site sounds like a great concept, and I look forward to it getting off the ground.

There we go. I think Matt will survive, but the first thing I thought of was how many writers' egos are going to be bruised by *not* being on the poaching list!