Reblogging: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

The ActiveRain Network recently posted on an updated feature to the Re-blog function on AR.  The post was reBlogs now require commentary and it got a lot of interesting comments on the subject of reblogging, in general, as well as (to date) 5 reblogs itself (more on that later).

Apparently, there is a strong love/hate relationship with the reblog function of AR.  It's either great or awful, depending on the person speaking about it.  I think it's often misunderstood, even by the creators themselves, sometimes.

Case in point, the update to require commentary if you reblog.  Is this a bad thing?  No.  If I choose to reblog a post, I want my readers to know why I thought it was worthy of them.  That said, I don't see how requiring a commentary is going to make someone that normally doesn't write one suddenly become a great wordsmith at it.  More likely, as Mike Jaquish said in his comment about it (a truly elegant writer, imo) that they will only develop a cut and paste template to make the word count.  I think he summed it up nicely with this: Comment word count is irrelevant.  Some people are more elegant in 6 words than others are in 100 words. 

Is the word count/commentary requirement about the points you get for doing a reblog?  If so, then it would be better to simply NOT give points for reblogging than requiring a commentary (However, giving points for having your posts reblogged was a great idea.  Posts worthy of reblogs should be rewarded).

As I said, there were some interesting comments.  Many delved off on a tangent of "the purpose of reblogging" if you will and what should or should not be allowed with reblogging.  Even AR did with the very first line of the post, "The reBlog concept is a really good idea, if used properly."

So, the question then becomes "how do you reblog properly?"  Is there a proper way to do it, and if so, what exactly is it?

See, I thought the purpose of the reblog function was for me to give my permission to allow my content to be reposted by fellow ActiveRain members on their inside and outside blogs in its entirety.  If it's something more than that, maybe I'm missing something.

And as Gregory Bain pointed out, "in its entirety" is a much bigger issue than commentary on reblogs.  As it stands now, a person can choose to reblog my post, hit edit, change anything they want, then resubmit.  Problem is...I didn't give permission to do that.  The ability to edit a reblog should be nixed, pronto!

Maybe the intended purpose of forced commentary was to help the reader know that the reblogged post was NOT the blog owner's original work.  A reblogged post already has a "via" tag to it, dut as Jeff Belonger said, it should be larger than it currently is and adding a photo of the original author wasn't a bad idea, either.

And that's why I like to get my posts reblogged.  I, like many others (and you should too, if you don't) add links to our websites, listings, etc and those go along for the ride when someone reblogs, adding additional links to YOU.  YAY!

The reBlogs now require commentary post garnered 5 reblogs of its own.  Because of this, I have to ask, if you reblog, why do you reblog a post?  I didn't look at any of the reblogs and how they used it, but I reblog posts that I think my customers/clients would find useful/helpful, yet some of the most reblogged posts seem to be professional oriented or AR oriented.  I find that interesting.

Finally, several comments slanted toward how people should use reblogging or that many were posting only reblogged  posts and that was "bad."  If they're talking about gaming the AR system for points, the simple answer is the above, stop giving points for reblogs.  If they were talking about specifically how someone should blog, well...that's another issue.

My thoughts are if you do not like how the reblog function is being used it may be a good idea simply to turn that function off on your blog.

What's your thoughts?