As regular readers know, we often solicit and publish guest posts at Ordinary Times, both from readers and professional writers who work elsewhere. Such was the case with the post Teamwork Is Overrated, a piece by Jennifer Dziura that was part of our Work Symposium.
Unfortunately, it appears that Teamwork Is Overrated is a piece that has already been submitted and published, verbatim, on a number of other blogs over the past two years. This was somewhat disappointing for a number of reasons — not the least of which is that I actually liked it quite a bit, both as a reader and an editor.
Though we pride ourselves on publishing a variety of different kinds of writing from a number of viewpoints, the truth is we don’t won’t (and in this case, can’t) publish just anything. We look to bring our readers quality writing that facilitates an ongoing conversation, free from spam or overt ads, PR, and puff pieces. While Teamwork Is Overrated certainly crossed that first hurdle of quality writing, it failed some of our other benchmarks — not the least of which is that we do not have permission from other blogs to republish content whose rights they must surely feel they control. Because of this we are removing the post content and closing its comments section.
Please note this removal is not intended as a criticism of Ms. Dziura. To my knowledge, she never once claimed the piece to be original or unpublished. Had we asked in advance, we might have been able to ask HuffPo for permission to re-publish content to which they now (I believe) own the rights. That’s on us, not Ms. Dziura.
Apologies to our readers, especially those in the midst of discussions in that post’s threads. Apologies as well to Ms. Diuza for our not asking better questions upfront, and to HuffPo for our inadvertent stepping on their toes.
– Tod
1) Were you asked to remove the post by HuffPo, or did you proactively do so?
2) If you think so highly of it, why not link to it?Report
1a) I am imagining Arianna herself in the Arianna voice* asking you to take down the post.
*She is the voice of Arianna the Bear on The Cleveland Show.Report
1. No, as far as I know HuffPo doesn’t know we ran it.
2. That might be an idea. I’ll consider it.Report
Tod,
I don’t know what your “process” is in soliciting/reviewing/publishing works from guest authors, but I figure you’ll want to add those questions to the process going forward. 🙂
I for one, have no objection to reading stuff that has been published other places. Certainly not if it’s relevant to the ongoing converstation or theme like Work Symposium. In part because of the commentators here on this site and the fact that it’s unlikley I’ve read it other places. Case in point-I generally avoid Huffpo.Report
Well, there goes my plan to post that gallery of celebrity “nip slips” here.Report
I sent you my e-mail address. No need for it to go to waste.Report