Disturbing trend in recent days...

I agree, the frank discussion of business ethics has a place here.

But when people start threads about "hey, these other people are doing this thing I think is unethical," that doesn't actually help anyone with business ethics. Telling someone "that is wrong, don't do it" does not in any way answer the two major questions that inevitably arise:

1. What do people get out of that in the first place?

2. What should I be doing to get that instead?

When you're not personally doing something because you think it's wrong (which, of course, is how most of us react to the idea that something is wrong: we don't do it), chances are pretty good you don't know the answer to the first question, which leaves you unqualified to answer the second.

Take the idea of "scraping web sites and spinning the articles." When you tell people "don't do this," those two questions come up, and the guy bitching about how you're not supposed to do it doesn't have a good answer... because he's simply not qualified to talk about why anyone would scrape-and-spin.

I'm not qualified, either, so "don't scrape-and-spin" isn't advice I'd start a thread to give out. Not because I don't agree with it, but because - again - I'm simply not qualified to talk about it.

So instead, I advise people to write their own original articles or hire freelance writers to write original articles. Because that is something I know about. But if your business doesn't look like mine, maybe that advice is not good for you. Among other things, you may have a business that doesn't use articles in the first place.

The ethics of scraping and spinning are certainly something worth talking about, but that's an entire class of behaviour. Saying nobody should be doing that in any way for any reason is an awfully broad brush.

Let's hope we don't decide to debate this in the following manner:


We all know how that ended.

(something like this)

True. But even that requires knowledge of ethical theory, not mere opinion
masquerading as 'fact'.

I'm sure no more than a tiny fraction of this forum's readership can tell what
teleological and deontological ethics are, leave alone apply that framework to
decisions taken in the course of daily activities!

All success
Dr.Mani

Caliban, Smartest comment of the past week. Dumbest comment-from-a-smart-person of the past week.

The logical extension of this is the suggestion that the more honest a person is, the less they should say about how to do business honestly.

Marko, And don't tell other people not to do it? Like "Don't steal my content and re-post it under your name?"

I don't personally care if you don't like my opinion on that. If you do that, you're a thief. A talentless leech who lives off the efforts of other, more creative and productive people.

It's useful to hear differing opinions, especially educated ones about complex topics like copyright and originality of content. It is not useful to make general suggestions like "If you don't do it, don't talk about it."


Paul

See if you can't do the math on why that's not the same thing.

Hey paul,

I am certainly not about to get into a full debate, but I think some (many things in marketing) are much more gray areas than robbing a bank.

What I took from caliban's post was that people should not try to impose their ethics onto other people much less call out a group of people in a forum because they don't like something they do even though its not illegal... especially when there are many shades of gray involved.

Yes, that is why one argues. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition. In this case, that if one intends to express an opinion, that opinion is not absolved of the need to be informed simply because it says NOT to do something.

When someone says "build AdSense blogs as a cornerstone of your business," we don't accept that blindly. We want to know who is saying that and why.

But when someone says "don't build AdSense blogs as a cornerstone of your business," we don't seem to be exerting the same standards. The negative nature of the assertion changes our behaviour, and it shouldn't.

Fixed that for you. Notice that this is a fact, involving no personal judgment whatsoever. If you are unsure where the line is, there need be no debate: you simply refer to the law.

But we're not seeing people talk about robbing banks, we're seeing them talk about walking into banks to get money. Then they're speculating that the person getting the money doesn't have an account, because if they did they would use the ATM.

But if a person who does have an account writes me a cheque, I could walk into that person's bank and cash the cheque. I do not need an account to cash that cheque there.

That is not robbing the bank. It is also not dishonest, destructive, dangerous, or against the law.

There are many other things I could do, as well. I could deposit the cheque at my own bank and take the money out of my own account, which I could do either at the window or at an ATM. But if I choose not to do that, I don't need to explain my reasons.

The crucial distinction here is that things are being discussed which are not matters of fact. They are opinions, and we generally require opinions to be informed. Consider the following.

Joe builds AdSense blogs as his main income, and he starts a thread about building AdSense blogs. He is equally qualified to say that he does or does not recommend this to other people.

Bob has never built an AdSense blog, ever. He starts a thread about building AdSense blogs. He is also equally qualified to say that he does or does not recommend this - specifically, he's not very qualified at all.

But lately, we are not questioning people like Bob as rigorously when they say not to do something.

We would rake Bob over the coals if he said "go build AdSense blogs," because he knows nothing about them.

We would also rake Joe over the coals if he said not to build them, because we would consider it hypocrisy. So we don't simply have a lower standard for negative statements.

But when Bob starts a thread and says not to do something that he himself has never done, we all seem to just nod our heads and accept that Bob's principles (to combat dishonesty, destruction, and danger) are good principles - whether his assertion is accurate or not.

For example, Chris drags in one of the example threads (which he himself started) and asks whether we can agree that a very different assertion is accurate. Yes. Yes, we can. And we can agree that this assertion is one which evidences many good moral and ethical principles.

But just like the example Paul uses of "robbing a bank," the new assertion is about something illegal. The original was not. It's not that I disagree with the principles that "spinning someone else's copyrighted content" violates, it's that the original assertion conveniently omitted the fact that much content on the internet is not copyrightable. The new assertion is dramatically different from the original.

in other words, if we all just MYOFB, the world would be a heck of a better place.

love this post!

If there is a reward to be given to any one in WF, it should be given to you my friend for posting such a wonderful thread. Those two threads about "Writer" and "Internet Marketer" really disturbed my mind too a lot. I was wondering what does it matter to them on 'how we do business' so long as we are not cheating anyone.

This thread has really given me a great relief and my heartfelt thanks to you for bringing this out my friend.

I have thanked many of them who have posted a reply to your thread supporting your point.

But very much a point to be considered.

I'm not telling anyone how to run their business, first of all. I'm telling them how to start threads, and how to respond to threads people start, about how to run a business.

It's also my opinion, not a hard and fast rule where if you don't do this you're doing it wrong. I do a lot of opinion-stating. I don't believe in using spinners, for example - not because there's something morally wrong with it, but because they're just horribly bad at what they do. But rather than say "nobody should ever use a spinner," I tell people that I don't use spinners and this is why I don't and maybe they should think about that.

I made that argument about proxies, in another thread. Most proxy usage is designed to conceal the true identity and location of the user. This is usually because you are doing something wrong. So you should probably think about whether you're doing something wrong.

There are still perfectly vaad ways to use proxies, which is why I don't say "never ever ever use a proxy." I say that I don't use them. I say that you should give it some thought. But I'm not telling anyone how to run their business. I'm pretty laissez-faire when it comes to other people's businesses. Some of my friends are downright criminal about how they run their business; I don't approve, but it's not my business. Can't knock a man's hustle.

Even here in this thread, there's not one assertion from me that one should or should not do a thing. Only that this is being done, I don't agree with it, and that we should probably question it.

Which is an opinion. I'm not interested in making more people do like I do or think like I think. I'm interested in people doing and thinking, but there's an awful lot of room for them to differ from me, and I kind of like that. Sometimes what I think is stupid, and I just don't know it yet.